Karaage Pheasant

Every now and then I get lazy, I feel uninspired and it gets really difficult to for me to come up with new posts. It might just be fatigue or it might be that I am just  a slug and need to get off my dead lazy and do something. I worry sometimes that I will run out of ideas and new things to try. I don't want to start repeating myself and putting out the same recipes. So far between what I write here and what I have written for others I have almost 400 different posts. I have kind of been in a rut as of late and even though I keep a journal of ideas that still has 30-40 ideas that I haven't tried yet I found myself uninspired and not able to think of something new.

A few weeks back I finally got around to making potstickers something I had wanted to do for a long time but never did. While I was making those it reminded me of all the great food that I ate and tried when I lived in Japan and in less then 30 minutes I had ten new things to try. All the different noodle dishes that I ate as well as the seafood and of course the Karaage Chicken. I used to frequent a little bar in Sasebo, Japan that we all used to call Mama's. I'm not sure if that was the real name of the bar or not but that's what we all called the lady who ran the joint. Mama's was never our first stop of the evening but it was always the last place we would go and usually never leave. We would sing Karaoke drink massive amount of bourbon and without fail by the end of the night eat a plate of Karaage.


Karaage is Japanese fried chicken and is some of the best fried chicken I have ever eaten. Mama would always serve it up with a little ketchup which sounds strange but at the end of a good night of drinking was heaven on a plate. Karaage is a very lightly breaded fried chicken that uses potato starch as the breading. All of the flavor comes from the marinade that you soak the chicken. The marinade is loaded with garlic and ginger then you add sake, mirin, and soy sauce. It is left to marinate for about 30 minutes then dredged in the potato starch and dropped into the hot oil. It is insanely easy to make and honestly I have no Idea why it took me 20 years to make it myself. Mama used to make hers with chicken thighs but I wanted to make it a little bit wild so I used pheasant breasts. Mine wasn't as good as Mama's but it was pretty awesome. Perhaps if I drink a lot of bourbon and sing some karaoke it will be better.

Karaage, (Japanese Fried pheasant)

1 pound of pheasant cut into large 2 inch chunks
3 cloves of garlic, minced
2 inch knob of ginger grated
1/4 cup of sake
1/4 cup of good quality soy sauce
2 tablespoons Mirin
1 cup potato starch
Oil for frying

Mix together the Garlic, ginger, mirin, sake, and soy sauce and add the pheasant. Let marinade for 30 minutes. Heat your oil to 350 degrees then dredge the pheasant pieces in the potato starch and fry for 3-5 minutes or until golden brown on the outside and the meat inside is fully cooked. Season with salt and serve with a lemon wedge or some ketchup, depending on much you have had to drink.