Kara-Age Chicken

Tonight's dinner was courtesy of Foodbuzz's Tastemaker Program and Kikkoman!

I was intrigued with this Kikkoman Kara-Age as soon as I opened the box.  Kara-Age is a Japanese fried dish with soy and ginger flavors.  I don't really eat a whole lot of fish, so I decided to prep it with chicken.  It was incredibly easy.

Kara-Age Chicken

1 pound Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts

1 package Kikkoman Kara-Age Seasoning

Water

Vegetable Oil

(Don't you love four ingredient meals?)

The seasoning was really simple to use.  I first cut the chicken into bite-size nuggets.  Then I rinsed off the chicken with water and dropped the wet pieces of chicken in a bowl with the seasoning (no dredging in flour/eggs - it simplified the process a lot!).  I tossed everything together so that the chicken would be coated and dropped the nuggets into hot vegetable oil (I heated the oil to about 300-325 degrees).  I let them cook for about 10-15 and then drained the excess oil.  See?  Very easy!

To compliment the soy and ginger, I served the Kira-Age Chicken with sticky white rice and broccoli cuts.  It was a fantastic combination!

The flavor was actually a lot more subtle than I thought it was going to be.  When I first opened the seasoning package, all I could smell was ginger - but the taste wasn't overwhelming.

(This was a fabulous end to the meal!)

I was honestly a little bit wary when I was making dinner because I have never done a ton of cooking with ginger before.  That being said - I was pleasantly surprised with how it turned out!  It's definitely something I would try again. 

And (I cannot believe I am about to say this) I think I might even try it again with some kind of fish.  Most people know that I never eat fish (I just never had a taste for it), but I just think this seasoning would bring out an awesome flavor on a subtle-tasting (read: not overly fishy) fish.  So we'll see!

What are everyone's thoughts on cooking with ginger?  Does anyone have any recipes or cooking methods they would suggest?  Now I'm curious ...

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Now for some legal chatter: I was contacted by the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program and Kikkoman to do a review of this specific product and was given the product free of charge. However - the opinions I expressed in this post were completely my own. Over and out. Amen.