This unique chicken dish from Korea combines two unlikely ingredients: gochujang (Korean chilli paste) and strawberry jam. Though you might not associate strawberries with Asian cuisine, northern regions like Northern China, Korea and Japan are home to native, wild varieties of strawberries and they aren’t considered an alien flavour. This dish, typically known as a ‘yangnyeom’, consists of a battered, fried chicken glazed with a sweet and sour gochujang sauce. When this dish became a popular street food item back in 1980’s Korea, a lot of vendors found the glaze would crystallise while it was held on display. To remedy this, vendors would use a liquid sugar and one particular type of sugar was found to pair exceptionally well with gochujang: strawberry jam. The combination of the two provides a sweet, spicy and fruity dish which is great served with rice or tucked into sandwiches. As for the frying, we’re not quite deep-frying the chicken here. Just a coating of potato starch or cornflour makes a great, crispy coat when pan-fried in a half-inch depth of oil, so you won’t have any oily mess to deal with after. Let’s go!
