Oita Toriten Chicken Tempura Regional Style

Ingredients

• For the marinade
• 600 g chicken thigh, boneless, skin on, cut into 4–5 cm pieces
• 30 ml fresh ginger juice, grated and pressed — the defining toriten aromatic
• 15 ml soy sauce, 2:1 ginger-to-soy ratio
• For the batter
• 1 egg, cold, whipped
• 150 ml cold water, iced
• 120 g plain flour, sifted; batter is slightly thicker than standard tempura
• For frying
• 1 litre neutral oil, for deep-frying
• For the dip
• 50 ml ponzu, equal parts with mayonnaise
• 50 ml Japanese mayonnaise, equal parts with ponzu
• To serve
• 2 kabosu citrus, halved, squeezed at table over hot toriten

Method

1. 1
   Combine ginger juice and soy sauce in a bowl at the 2:1 ratio. Add the chicken pieces and turn to coat thoroughly. Leave to marinate until the ginger aroma is pronounced and the soy has coloured the surface of the meat.
2. 2
   Whisk the cold egg with the iced water until uniform, then sift in the flour and whisk briefly to a batter with slight body — thicker than standard tempura batter, with enough viscosity to coat the back of a spoon and cling to the large chicken pieces without running off.
3. 3
   Heat the oil to 160 °C. Working in batches, lift each chicken piece from the marinade, shake off excess, dip into the batter, and lower into the oil. Fry until the batter is just set and pale gold — the pieces are not yet fully cooked through at this stage. Remove and rest on a rack.
4. 4
   Raise the oil to 180 °C. Return the rested pieces to the oil for the second fry. This is where the dish lives or dies: the batter must blister to a deep amber and shatter audibly when tapped, while the larger 4–5 cm pieces remain juicy within — if the batter is thin or the pieces undersized, neither condition is achieved simultaneously.
5. 5
   Drain the toriten briefly on a rack. Stir together equal parts ponzu and Japanese mayonnaise to form the dip. Plate the toriten immediately alongside the dip and halved kabosu; the kabosu is squeezed over the hot chicken at the table, its acid resetting the richness of the fried batter.