Chefs put personal spins on Taiwanese fried chicken

Growing up, chef David Kuo and his brothers played video games in a converted garage in the family’s backyard in West Covina, Calif. Just outside, luffa gourds, garlic chives, sweet potato leaves and other crops beloved in Taiwan grew in his grandmother’s garden.

Yet Kuo’s father would often come home from work with a bucket of Church’s fried chicken, and they would dig in as they wrestled pixelated figures on the screen.

The bony pieces were unlike the fried chicken Kuo encountered at street vendor stalls on family visits to Taiwan: yan su ji, boneless popcorn chicken strewn with fried basil leaves, and da ji pai, butterflied boneless breast cutlets. Marinated in soy sauce, rice wine, often garlic and always five-spice powder, then coated with coarse sweet potato starch, fried and finished with a dusting of white pepper, Taiwanese fried chicken is typically served in paper bags, without any sauce, for easy on-the-go snacking.

At Kuo’s Los Angeles restaurant, Little Fatty, the poultry on the menu feels familiar, yet distinctive. In a nod to his Taiwanese roots, his American

childhood and his fine-dining background, Kuo sells small, bone-in pieces of popcorn quail topped with fried basil, with spicy mayo for dipping.

“It symbolizes Taiwanese cuisine, obviously, but for me, it brings back memories,” he said. “Eating something with bones in front of the TV was the ultimate fun.”

Interest in Taiwanese cooking is surging in the United States, with cookbooks that chronicle the cuisine and new shops and pop-ups opening left and right. Kuo is among a generation

of Taiwanese American chefs who are molding this night-market fixture to fit their upbringings and tastes.

Traditionally, Taiwanese fried chicken is not dipped in a wet batter, and according to some Taiwanese American chefs, it’s not Taiwanese fried chicken if it’s not lightly coated with sweet-potato starch, which creates an irresistibly crackly crust. And signature to the popcorn chicken style are deeply jade crystalline shards of fried basil that garnish the bite-size pieces.

Lenny Gilmore/New York Times Bone-in popcorn quail at Little Fatty in Los Angeles is inspired by chef David Kuo’s childhood love of Church’s chicken, visits to Taiwan’s street-food stalls and his fine-dining background.