2 Key Ingredients Your Fried Chicken Batter Is Missing

Fried chicken is a beloved meal around the world. While traditional Southern fried chicken may be an American favorite, international chefs have plenty of expertise to share on improving your frying game. We spoke to Frankie Gaw, author of "First Generation: Recipes from My Taiwanese-American Home" and creator of the website Little Fat Boy, to get his take on the ingredients your fried chicken batter might be missing.

"My family is from Taiwan so my favorite method of battering fried chicken is marinating chicken in a mixture of soy sauce, garlic, cooking wine, a little bit of flour, and egg white and then tossing it in sweet potato starch," Gaw says. Egg whites are particularly important because they "velvet" the meat — a popular Chinese method of tenderizing meat with a marinade seen in dishes like takeout-style beef and broccoli. This technique is incredibly effective for fried chicken, not only making the meat softer, but also helping dry ingredients adhere better.

Additionally, potato starch is key to achieving the crispiest fried chicken. "It gets so crispy when fried and reminds me so much of the fried chicken in night markets," Gaw explains. It's unique among starches thanks to its high gelatinization temperature, meaning it won't absorb liquid nearly as much as the chicken fries. Combine the tastes of the marinade with the properties of sweet potato starch, and you're left with something as flavorful as it is crispy.

After removing the chicken from the marinade and letting any excess liquid drip off, it's time to create the magic between sweet potato starch and egg whites. While you may be able to substitute your starch with corn or regular potato, or your egg whites with whole eggs, there's a special kind of synergy that happens between Frankie Gaw's two recommended ingredients.

You might wonder why you should waste an egg yolk to velvet the chicken when baking soda can tenderize meat without any waste. It's because baking soda lowers the gelatinization temperature of starches — the point at which starches expand and absorb moisture. In fried coatings, this effect traps moisture in the breading, rather than letting it escape out of the oil to turn to steam, making it soggy and chewy. In a proper breading, water should cleanly pass through starches to be replaced by oil, creating that signature fried food flavor. Ultimately, baking soda velvets meat incredibly well but sabotages the crispiness of the batter, whereas egg whites tenderize the chicken while still allowing moisture to escape.

Though the chicken is already bursting with flavor, you can add basil to the oil while it heats up to add some herbal notes to the final product. Just be sure to strain out the leaves before frying your chicken to prevent the basil from burning and turning bitter. Finish off your fried chicken with a sprinkle of salt while it drains for a perfectly flavorful end result. For more of Gaw's cooking tips, check out his "Savoring Singapore" content series in partnership with the Singapore Tourism Board and Klook.