Fried ── Fried dishes
Tori-ten
tempura-style fried chicken
Boneless chicken in a light, tempura-style batter, fried, said to have originated in Beppu, Oita. It's said to have begun as an adaptation of bone-in karaage made easier for women to eat, served with sudachi citrus or a mustard-vinegar-soy sauce.
- Origin: Oita Beppu
- About 800 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Boneless chicken thigh, cut bite-size, is coated in a light, tempura-like batter and fried. Compared to karaage, the crumb is thin and airy, giving a light crackle on the first bite before the chicken's juiciness catches up right behind it. A squeeze of sudachi citrus or a mustard-vinegar-soy dip lightens the richness further.
How it's made
Chicken thigh or breast, cut bite-size, is seasoned with garlic, soy sauce, and sugar, then dipped in a batter of flour and egg and fried at 175-180°C. The batter is kept thinner than karaage's, and with no bone to work around it's easier to eat and fries crisp in less time; sudachi citrus or a mustard-vinegar-soy sauce is the usual accompaniment.
Why it took this shape
One account holds that a diner in Beppu, said to be the prefecture's first Western-style restaurant, devised it by turning bone-in karaage into a boneless, tempura-style version so women could eat it more easily. In an era when chicken was costly, the batter is also said to have stretched the meat further, letting a whole family share it.
Before you go
Dishes in the same style
- Agemaki Yuba no NimonoFresh yuba sheets are layered, rolled into a log, sliced into rounds, and deep-fried before a slow simmer in a light broth — a Nikko dish built on the region's rippled yuba-making craft, served at New Year's and celebrations.
- Aji FryFilleted horse mackerel breaded in panko and fried. Chiba prefecture holds some of the richest mackerel fishing grounds in Japan, and frying is thought to have taken root as a quick way to eat regional brands like the oily 'golden aji' fresh.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Oita
- Aji no MaruzushiA whole horse mackerel, cured in plum vinegar and opened flat, is wrapped around vinegared rice and rolled in red shiso leaf — a celebratory sushi from Saiki, painstaking to prepare, built on the rich mackerel landed from the Bungo Channel.
- AmimeshiKrill simmered sweet-savory in mirin, soy sauce, and ginger is folded into freshly steamed rice — a dish from the Usa, Nakatsu, and Bungotakada coast, where krill are hauled from the Buzen Sea tideflats each autumn and winter; a favorite of the northern Oita coast.
- Atama RyoriGills, jaw, and innards of a large fish like grouper are quickly parboiled along with the flesh and piled onto a single platter — a dish from inland Taketa, far from the sea, said to have grown from a wish to waste nothing of a rare catch, served with a citrus dipping sauce.
- Ayu UrukaAyu (sweetfish) flesh or innards are minced with salt and left to ferment for about a week — an Oita salted delicacy said to have begun as a way to keep the clean river's seasonal catch; the innards-only version, nigauruka, carries a distinctive bitterness.
- Beppu ReimenThe dish's spread is traced to around 1950, when a cook repatriated from what had been Manchuria began making cold noodles in Beppu. Genso Arirang, founded that same year, is often named as the pioneering shop; the local style pairs a Japanese-style seafood stock with noodles made from buckwheat, wheat, and starch.
- Dango-jiruWheat dough kneaded and stretched into flat ribbons is simmered with root vegetables and shiitake in a barley-miso broth — an everyday Oita dish born of the prefecture's flour-based food culture, where poor rice land pushed wheat to the fore; the ribbons keep a firmer bite than udon.