Genius
Korean Fried Chicken, But Make It Crispy Chickpeas
The sweet-spicy yangnyeom sauce in Eric Kim’s debut cookbook 'Korean American' will be good on nearly everything.
Every week in Genius Recipes—often with your help!—Food52 Founding Editor and lifelong Genius-hunter Kristen Miglore is unearthing recipes that will change the way you cook.
The joys of Korean fried chicken—the sweet-sticky crunch, the heat coursing down your throat, the cooling gulps of beer—are all but effortless to unleash at home, without the frying and even without the chicken.
In former Food52 senior editor and columnist Eric Kim’s much-anticipated debut cookbook Korean American, he distills the sauce that coats yangnyeom—or “seasoned”—chicken, using it instead to gloss up crispy chickpeas. Unlike the typical double-fried chicken, the chickpeas only need a hot roast in the oven to form a crackly shell for the sauce to hug.
But Eric argues that yangnyeom sauce—reportedly invented by Yang Jong Kye in Korea in the 1980s and popularized by chains like Pelicana and Bonchon—can and should be used more widely, on everything from ribs to pork chops to crispy tofu. His version in Korean American sizzles together in just a couple minutes, with spoonfuls of five ingredients that are easy to always have on hand: ketchup, gochujang, strawberry jam, soy sauce, and garlic. That’s it.
Eric landed on this combination after chasing the memory of another favorite banchan, a chewy, salty black bean dish called kongjorim. But after realizing that his family in Atlanta—with whom he unexpectedly found himself developing his cookbook for nine months—wasn’t going back to the fridge for more, he started over with a yangnyeom sauce he was working on at the same time. “My family was like ‘Yeah, this is it—Eric, you did it!” he said. “I just knew that I had arrived at what the dish was supposed to be.”
“I also just love that this dish—it’s not just some fusion dish, chickpeas with Korean flavors,” Eric continued. “It has a reference point, which is Korean fried chicken. And that was really important to me—I wanted to create something that felt authentic, even though I made it up.”
There was one final reference point that clinched the recipe—pa chicken, or scallion chicken, served with a tangle of julienned scallions, curled and mellowed from a soak in ice water—heaped on top. The scallions are more salad than garnish, a fresh, cooling balance to everything below.
As Eric writes in Korean American, “To be truly happy, this is all I need with Netflix, a cold beer, and my pup at my side,” and adds that fresh white rice completes the meal.
“In Korean, it’s actually called ‘bap doduk.’ It means rice thief,” Eric said. “Things are called that when they’re so delicious, so flavorful that you just end up eating a lot of white rice on the side with it. So a dish this good steals white rice.”
| 1 | (15-ounce) can chickpeas, drained, rinsed, and dried on a paper towel |
| 2 | tablespoons olive oil |
| Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper | |
| 3 | tablespoons ketchup |
| 1 | tablespoon gochujang |
| 1 | tablespoon strawberry jam |
| 1 | tablespoon soy sauce |
| 1 | tablespoon minced garlic |
| 1 | tablespoon honey |
| 1 | tablespoon toasted sesame seeds |
| 2 | large scallions, julienned into long thin strips, soaked in iced water |
| 1 | (15-ounce) can chickpeas, drained, rinsed, and dried on a paper towel |
| 2 | tablespoons olive oil |
| Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper | |
| 3 | tablespoons ketchup |
| 1 | tablespoon gochujang |
| 1 | tablespoon strawberry jam |
| 1 | tablespoon soy sauce |
| 1 | tablespoon minced garlic |
| 1 | tablespoon honey |
| 1 | tablespoon toasted sesame seeds |
| 2 | large scallions, julienned into long thin strips, soaked in iced water |
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Written by: Kristen Miglore
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3 Comments
And I love the name from Eric - I had never heard of rice thief before but what a perfect description.
“In Korean, it’s actually called ‘bap doduk.’ It means rice thief,” Eric said. “Things are called that when they’re so delicious, so flavorful that you just end up eating a lot of white rice on the side with it. So a dish this good steals white rice.”
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