Taiwanese Popcorn Chicken With Fried Basil Recipe (2024)

substitute for tapioca flour:Corn starchRice flourArrowrootPotato starchCassava flour

Using an air fryer for this recipe:I am taiwanese and we used to buy this street food a few times a week. I follow the recipe but use the air fryer instead of oil. I must say , the flavor is at least 85% correct vs a 70% for french fries on air fryer. The only thing I did differently was that instead of heating the oil, I used oil spray to coat both side of the chicken. Set it to 400° air fry mode and did 13 min in total. Be generous on the tapioca flour, made all the differences.

We made this recipe with half the salt and did a test of frying and baking the chicken. We sprayed a baking sheet with oil and lightly brushed the chicken again with oil once it was on the sheet. Baked at 425 degrees for roughly 20 minutes flipping pieces half way. It turned out beautifully and we couldn’t be more impressed!

In order for this dish to be gluten-free, it would have to be made with a gluten-free soy sauce or tamari. Regular soy sauce contains wheat.

For all those suggesting the dish is too salty, I have a suspicion you are using something other than Diamond Crystal kosher salt. Salt is only interchangeable when measured by weight, not volume. Most chefs/recipe creators use Diamond Crystal, so if you substitute Morton kosher salt, you’ll get a much saltier dish because it is more finely ground and you’ll pack more into a unit of measurement.

Made with tofu and chicken. Tofu had a silky, cheese-like texture with crisp outside. The tapioca made it super crispy. Can’t decide whether I like the tofu or chicken better, but wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the tofu.

I often use a mixture of cornstarch and rice flour and it always works well.

Rice flour worked as a great substitute, you only need 1/2 cup. Made a spicy mayo dipping sauce to go alongside (~1 T sriracha and 3 T Kewpie mayo, thinned with 1 T water). Take it easy on the salt/peppercorn mixture at the end; the marinade is pretty salty as is (due to the 2 T soy sauce + 2 t kosher salt) so I recommend tasting the cooked chicken before dusting with more salt. Skipped grinding the peppercorns and used fresh cracked pepper.

You don’t need ANY water with the tapioca flour. If you watch the video with Chef Li where she makes this recipe, she simply uses the water from her hands to get the flour to form the beads. I used extra water and it was a mess. Still turned out fine but super difficult to handle and definitely less crunchy.

Good, worth a 2nd try. Way,way, way to much salt, somehow. Basil at 2 minutes was overdone and tasteless . 15-30 seconds maybe, or just fresh over the top? Not sure the additional seasoning at the end was needed, plenty of szechuan peppercorn flavor/smell; so much so it was the dominant odor and the salt the dominant taste. But, I do want to try it again.

Loved this! And it was so easy to make. I would definitely recommend cutting the salt down. I could have gotten away with cutting it in half. For the seasoning I did not have any Chinese 5 Spice so I used Garam Malasa and I think the result was pretty similar.

This probably only applies to real cooking geeks, or Japanese cooks, but you can substitute sansho for the peppercorns if you have some on hand.

Tried this one with cornstarch. Just ok. Tried it again with Tapioca flour. AMAZING. We dip it in rice wine vinegar then dunk in the salt n pepper mixture. Caution frying the basil. It can pop given the moisture in it so stand back.

Air fryers and crock pots help people mask bad cooking with over confidence. Cook by the recipe and see how it should be. Then ruin it in an air fryer

Good, though I feel strongly you can reduce the salt in the marinade by half.

We made this with extra firm tofu to make it veggie. So so so good

This certainly has the potential to be an easy go-to for my fried chicken cravings. But, last night I made it and it was a disaster. First, way too salty. Yes, maybe I used the wrong salt (and only half), but if I try again I will eliminate it completely. I didn't even add salt on top at the end, and we tossed out most of it. As for the basil, I don't know what frying it could possibly add. Besides exploding and spraying hot oil all over me and the kitchen, it really just became a slimy mess.

Classic recipe isA) not tapioca flour but sweet potato flour (Taiwan doesn't grow tapioca)B) just black pepper is good enough, Sichuan peppercorns is more spicy modificationC) regular salt is juts fine (very limited kosher food in TW, therefore, kosher salt is not a popular choice)Good choicechicken thighs are welcome but chicken breasts are more popular in TW

Go easy on saltGo easy on tapioca flour….doesn’t need to be fully coated, it will get gummy. Do a test piece. Only need 1-2 cups of oil…do in big wok

Watch the video before making - Sue Li wets her hands (rather than adding water to the chicken and tapioca). I did the same, a few times, and it worked great.

In Taiwan, we use Thai or Taiwanese basil. The regular basil in America is not the same.

Air fryer 13 minutes @ 400

Fried with corn starch. Threw the chunks over a green salad for lunch. Delicious!

Addressing the saltiness- A brine works with salt to break down the meat and needs to be left for about 12 hours to release the salt from the meat. That reduces the saltiness. If you are NOT going to leave it to marinade that long- then just use a fraction of the salt.

You can get Sichuan peppercorns at Penny’s

Cooked in the air fryer and it was delicious

We found that this was a great recipe, but the salt overwhelmed a bit - perhaps reduce by 3/4s.

I used kosher salt like the recipe called for and agree that it’s way too salty. Will try again with less salt. Otherwise than the saltiness, the flavors are really good!

This didn’t work that well. It took a long time to become golden, and turned out very tough, and although I had read all the notes about reducing the salt, it turned out very salty. I still find the idea irresistible but would probably let someone else cook it.

This one turned out great in the air fryer with cooking spray at 400 for 13 minutes