the history of KFC 🍗
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KFC.
The other KFC.
Korean fried chicken.
Crunchy, crispy, and doused in sauce, you can walk down just about any rowdy neighborhood in Korea and find young kids to grandparents eating at plastic tables outside in the crisp fall air with plates of chicken and ice-cold beers — a combination known as chimaek (“chi” for chicken, “maek” as in maekju, or beer).
If you spent a few weeks in Korea, you’d think that fried chicken was a part of Korean heritage since the beginning of time. But, like many foods that ethnicities claim as their own, Koreans adopted fried chicken from a foreign influence — and relatively recently.
And ironically, like most of the greatest foods that have ever been created — it was introduced during a period of war and hardship.
In the 1940s and 1950s, American soldiers introduced their Korean comrades to fried chicken. Until then, Koreans only traditionally steamed or boiled whole chickens in soups or broths like samgyetang.
Of course, Korean people loved it immediately. The problem was that Korea was incredibly impoverished back then. Like one-of-the-poorest-countries-in-the-entire-world poor.
Years of war and occupation rarely left Koreans with the opportunity to enjoy this new dish, so it wasn’t popularized until decades later. By the 1970s, Korea finally abandoned its closed border policies and began its rapid economic expansion, ushered in by industrialization and open trade.
This led to two very important things: easily accessible cooking oil and cheaper chicken.
And the rest is history. With the US’s influence, Korean entrepreneurs tinkered and tested with different fried chicken recipes and introduced the “6-piece sets” that KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) sold in the US.
Korean fried chicken took on a style of its own, though. Their chicken is known for their super crispy crispiness, which is executed by double-frying the chicken — deep-frying it once, then deep frying it again and a higher temperature.
They come in several different styles, like normal fried or yangnyeom (marinated in spicy or soy seasonings).
Korean Fried Chicken Wings [In the Oven]
I’m going to show the same “ crispy oven-baked” style I did for the buffalo wings, but doing it with the famous Korean honey-soy glaze. Of course, the normal Korean fried chicken is deep-fried twice. You can easily adapt this by frying however you want (or even air frying), then just skip down to the Korean glaze part.
Do you. No one will get mad.
Ingredients:
Wings and Dredge:
~15-20 chicken wings [frozen is fine]
1 cup flour
Seasonings of your choice. Just S+P is fine too.
I use about ~1/2 tsp. each: cumin, smoked paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne pepper, salt, pepper
~1 tsp. baking powder
Honey-Soy Glaze:
~2-4 cloves of garlic, minced
~2 tbsp. of soy sauce
~1 tbsp. of honey
~1 tbsp. rice vinegar
~1 tsp. of cornstarch
Steps:
1 - If your chicken is frozen, defrost them by leaving them in the fridge overnight or with your microwave on the defrost setting.
2 - Preheat your oven to 450°F (230°C).
3 - Lay them out on paper towels and dry them thoroughly.
Like as dry as possible. This is absolutely key for getting crispiness.
If you have extra time, you can dry them and lay them on a baking sheet, and put them back in the fridge overnight. This will draw out more moisture. Honestly I almost never do this though. Just dry them out with paper towels.
4 - Mix up the flour with your seasonings and baking powder.
This is pretty much the same flour mixture I made for the fried chicken. Again, you can mix it all up ahead of time and just store it in some Tupperware.
Only difference here is adding the baking powder. This is the KEY ingredient to getting crispiness in the oven. Baking powder creates a chemical reaction that adds more crispiness.
5 - Dredge the wings in your flour mixture. Pack the flour in and shake off any excess.
6 - Liberally oil the bottom of your oven baking sheet. Then line your wings up on it. Drizzle or spray a little bit more oil on top of the wings. Then throw them in the oven for 30 minutes, flipping halfway through.
The worst thing in the world is going through the work to make crispy skin, then having it get stuck and torn off because you didn’t oil the sheet enough. Pain.
All ovens are different. Keep an eye on them and flip/take them out when necessary.
You’ll always get a better end result in crispiness if you don’t crowd the pan. Yet I still almost always crowd the pan (because I’m hungry and impatient). That said, try not to crowd it.
For Korean Glaze:
7 - Meanwhile, heat up a tablespoon of neutral cooking oil to a saucepan to medium-low heat.
8 - Add the minced garlic and keep it moving. Only cook it for about a minute, you don’t want it to burn.
9 - Add in the soy sauce, honey, and vinegar. Let it cook down together for about two minutes, then add in a little bit of cornstarch mixed with water.
The cornstarch will thicken the sauce so its nice and goopy and clingy to the chicken wings.
10 - Remove from heat. Add the sauce to your tossing bowl and wait for your wings to cook.
11 - When the wings are crispy to your liking, take them out and immediately toss in the honey-soy glaze. Top with sesame seeds and chopped green onions.
12 - IMPORTANT — drink with an ice-cold beer.
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