The trend of throwing foodstuffs into popping hot fat or oil and eating the fried result has taken the world by storm. From fried Oreos to fried clams, there have been countless successes along this path of sizzling experimentation, with fried chicken perhaps being the most iconic. For some, a perfectly flaky fried drumstick comes to mind when thinking about fried chicken, while others instead imagine a pile of tasty Japanese karaage.
While they both sport a crispy golden exterior, fried chicken and Japanese karaage are quite different. Fried chicken and Japanese karaage have different origin stories, preparation methods, and forms. While each fried delight eventually became a regional specialty, they were created in different contexts.
Both fried chicken and karaage are created by frying battered parts of chicken, but they are battered and seasoned in different ways. Lastly, fried chicken resembles the part of the chicken that it is made out of; karaage, on the other hand, takes on a smaller nugget shape and is usually boneless. A brief history of fried chicken While the origin of fried chicken is uncertain, there is evidence of a through line from 17th century Scottish cuisine to the Southern United States as a result of the practice of slavery.
Over time, enslaved African American cooks transformed Scottish fried chicken into a Southern specialty and the dish gained popularity beyond the Antebellum South. In the 1950s "Colonel" Harland Sanders franchised his Kentucky Fried.
