Korean Spicy Chicken Skillet with Rice Cakes

Most Korean chicken that reaches the US is battered and deep-fried. This is the other kind: boneless thigh meat browned in a dry pan, then finished in a sweet, garlicky, mildly spicy sauce. It is the home version of the seasoned roasted chicken sold by Jikoba, a Korean chicken chain — one skillet, no batter, no oil bath.

Mix the sauce in a bowl before you turn on the heat. Once the chicken starts browning there is no time to measure things out.

Step 1: Brown the chicken skin side down

• Uses: 1.2 lb (550 g) boneless chicken thighs · 2 tbsp cooking wine
• Heat: medium, and no oil in the pan
• Do: lay the thighs skin side down, then pour the 2 tbsp of cooking wine in with them
• Time: about 6 minutes
• Done when: the skin is deep golden, not pale
• Why no oil: the skin renders enough fat to cook everything that follows
• Why the wine: it cooks off in the first couple of minutes and takes the raw poultry smell with it
• Watch out: do not move the chicken early. That is how you end up with pale, rubbery skin

Step 2: Flip and add the aromatics

• Uses: 1–2 stalks scallion · 1 sliced serrano chili · 5–6 cloves garlic, sliced
• Heat: still medium
• Do: turn the thighs over, then scatter the scallions, sliced chili, and sliced garlic around them
• Why sliced, not minced: sliced garlic browns in the rendered fat and stays sweet. Minced garlic burns at this stage and turns bitter before the chicken is done

Step 3: Cut into bite-size pieces

• Uses: nothing new — just the chicken already in the pan
• When: once the chicken is mostly cooked through
• Do: cut it into bite-size pieces right in the pan. Kitchen shears are easier than a knife here
• Then: keep cooking after you cut
• Why: the freshly exposed cut faces brown too, and that is extra surface for the sauce to grab

Step 4: Add the sauce and rice cakes

• Uses: the whole sauce mix · 1 handful (about 1 cup) rice cakes
• Do: pour in the sauce, add the rice cakes, stir until everything is coated
• Watch out: add the sauce a bit at a time rather than dumping it all in. How much you want depends on how much fat rendered out of the chicken, and you cannot take it back once it is in

Step 5: Cook it down and finish

• Uses: 1 tsp toasted sesame seeds
• Time: a few more minutes
• Done when: the chicken is cooked through and the sauce clings to it instead of pooling in the pan
• Finish: a generous pinch of toasted sesame seeds
• Note: the rice cakes soften as the sauce thickens, so the two are done at the same time

Notes

• About the chili. In Korea this is made with a cheongyang chili. A serrano is the closest thing in a US supermarket — both land around 10,000 Scoville, and both are thin-walled enough to soften into the sauce. A jalapeño works if you want it milder; it is roughly a third of the heat and thicker-walled, so it stays crunchy rather than melting in.
• Want it hotter? Double the gochugaru to 2 tbsp. That is the difference between the mild and spicy versions, and it raises the heat without changing how the sauce tastes.
• The rice cakes should bend rather than snap before they go in. If yours are frozen or hard, soak them in warm water for about 20 minutes first.
• Save the sauce left in the pan. Scrape in a bowl of rice and stir it around over the heat. This is what Koreans do with the last of it, and it is arguably better than the chicken.
• Allulose keeps the glaze glossy and pourable instead of letting it set hard as it cools. I have not tested a substitute for it yet, so I am not going to guess at one here.