Food writer Susan Jung was known for nearly 25 years as the South China Morning Post’s (SCMP) Food and Drinks Editor. But since she published her cookbook Kung Pao & Beyond – Fried Chicken Recipes From East And Southeast Asia a year ago, she might be embracing a new identity as “that fried chicken lady”.
Jung loves fried chicken so much that she chuckled gleefully at the idea of that accolade ending up as an epitaph on her tombstone (choy!). “I don't think I'm that famous yet, but I would like to be known as a fried chicken lady,” she demurred. “Fried chicken is something that I just love.”
The diminutive pastry chef-turned-writer and her signature bob were in Singapore earlier this month for a Fried Chicken Gala dinner held at COMO Cuisine in which she presented two of the recipes from her book, Typhoon Shelter Chicken Wings and Taiwanese Night Market Fried Chicken, alongside dishes by three Singapore-based chefs from Michelin-starred restaurants: Malcolm Lee of Candlenut, Mano Thevar of Thevar and Louis Han of Nae:um.
Ayam Goreng Berempah by Malcolm Lee (Photo: CNA/May Seah)
For her, the collaboration highlighted what she appreciates about fried chicken – its adaptable versatility. “What I loved about this event is that we have Michelin star chefs making fried chicken. So, it can be very high end, and it can be very simple, very humble,” she said.
(Photo: Susan Jung)
Kung Pao & Beyond was born out of the recipe column she used to have in the SCMP. “I didn't know if people liked fried chicken as much as I like fried chicken, and so I would try not to write too many fried chicken recipes,” recalled the Hong Kong resident of Chinese ancestry who was born and raised in the US.
“One day, my colleagues said, ‘Susan, your fried chicken recipe is doing really well online.’ And, he said, as a joke, ‘We should write a book about it.’ And I I said, ‘That is a really good idea.’”
Since then, "I'm finding that everybody loves fried chicken”.
The book “was very easy to write,” she said. “I started off with 90 fried chicken recipes, and it's only East and Southeast Asia. I wanted to write all of Asia, but I realised it's way too big. Even then, I was able to come up with 90 recipes. I wrote down 90 recipes, tried 90 recipes, and then narrowed it down to 60, because that's what the publishers wanted. The ones I rejected were the ones that didn't 'wow' – when I tested the recipe, I didn't say, ‘Oh my gosh, this is so delicious.'”
Susan Jung's Typhoon Shelter Chicken Wings (Photo: CNA/May Seah)
When she delved into the history of fried chicken in Asia, she found that different cultures had their own unique ways of frying chicken that they could be proud of.
In contrast, “I was looking into the history of fried chicken in the United States. And it’s controversial because it was something made by slaves and appropriated by Colonel Sanders. Thank goodness in Asia, we don't have that to deal with. For me, I don't feel guilty about writing about fried chicken, whereas in the United States, they might feel a little bit more guilty because they would have to address that issue", which is "very important".
As a visitor to Singapore, she said, "you come here and you get fried chicken. You go to Thailand and you have fried chicken. You go to Vietnam and you have fried chicken. In every culture, it's something that's made and loved”.
She observed: “Even among people in the same country, there are different versions. When I was testing my northern Thai fried chicken recipe, I had some friends over for lunch and one of my friends who's from Bangkok said, 'This doesn't taste like Thai fried chicken.' So, the subject can be so broad.”
When considering which of her recipes to make and serve to Singaporean diners, “The one that I thought of automatically was shrimp paste fried chicken, and I have a recipe in the book,” she said. She also got her fix of the dish, also known as har cheong gai, during dinner at Keng Eng Kee Seafood.
But, she eventually chickened – pardon the pun – out. “I said, 'I'm a little scared to serve my version of this to Malaysians and Singaporeans, because I'm sure everybody here has their favourite that they compare everything to. That's why I picked two dishes – one is very unique to Hong Kong, the Typhoon Shelter wings; and the other is Taiwanese Night Market chicken.”
Jung’s Taiwanese Night Market Fried Chicken (Photo: CNA/May Seah)
More recipes in her book include Korean Fire Chicken, Ayam Goreng Berempah, Vietnamese Butter Wings, Japanese Karaage, Thai Crunchy Chicken with Toasted Rice Powder and chicken poppers with instant noodle coating.
After road testing so many recipes, researching and writing about fried chicken, and talking about it all day long to journalists, “I still love fried chicken!” Jung exclaimed.
“I thought that after three months of recipe testing where I made it at least once a day, that I would be sick of fried chicken, but it still excites me. I still love it whenever I taste a new version, and I think, ‘Why didn’t I include this in the book?’ I still get excited about it, and you can't say that about every food. I used to be a pastry chef – will I eat pastries every day? No. But, I could eat fried chicken every day.”
The magic of it is that "chicken is quite a subtle meat, so, it's a blank canvas. You can use whatever spices and herbs you want to flavour it and make it your own”.
It’s also a guiding map for cultural exploration. “I eat fried chicken wherever I travel to. And I'm still learning recipes that I wish I had included in the book because I think fried chicken is so universal. There's fried chicken, I think, probably in every culture, and it's something that's very appealing because, when made well, it's crunchy, juicy and just delicious.”
Kerala Fried Chicken by Mano Thevar (Photo: CNA/May Seah)
Not only is fried chicken a happy food, it is, at times, also Proustian for Jung.
“I think the recipe that's most important to me in the book is my mother's fried chicken. It's the first recipe in the book,” she said. The chicken is coated in corn starch and potato flour, then double fried and finished in the oven with a soy and ginger-based glaze.
“My mother used to make it for me and my brothers when we were young. When I moved away from home, I called up my mother and said, ‘How do you make this?' I was always calling my mum and asking how to make this or that dish. And so, the fried chicken was one of my first recipes.
"When the book came out, I went back to visit my mother and I made it for her. And I was so pleased that I was able to make her my version of her fried chicken,” she said, her eyes misting slightly. “She ate it and said, ‘Oh, it tastes like my fried chicken.’ And I was just really pleased – it was such a compliment and it made me feel like, ‘This is worth it.' It was a real good moment.”
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Jung loves fried chicken so much that she chuckled gleefully at the idea of that accolade ending up as an epitaph on her tombstone (choy!). “I don't think I'm that famous yet, but I would like to be known as a fried chicken lady,” she demurred. “Fried chicken is something that I just love.”
The diminutive pastry chef-turned-writer and her signature bob were in Singapore earlier this month for a Fried Chicken Gala dinner held at COMO Cuisine in which she presented two of the recipes from her book, Typhoon Shelter Chicken Wings and Taiwanese Night Market Fried Chicken, alongside dishes by three Singapore-based chefs from Michelin-starred restaurants: Malcolm Lee of Candlenut, Mano Thevar of Thevar and Louis Han of Nae:um.
Ayam Goreng Berempah by Malcolm Lee (Photo: CNA/May Seah)
For her, the collaboration highlighted what she appreciates about fried chicken – its adaptable versatility. “What I loved about this event is that we have Michelin star chefs making fried chicken. So, it can be very high end, and it can be very simple, very humble,” she said.
(Photo: Susan Jung)
Kung Pao & Beyond was born out of the recipe column she used to have in the SCMP. “I didn't know if people liked fried chicken as much as I like fried chicken, and so I would try not to write too many fried chicken recipes,” recalled the Hong Kong resident of Chinese ancestry who was born and raised in the US.
“One day, my colleagues said, ‘Susan, your fried chicken recipe is doing really well online.’ And, he said, as a joke, ‘We should write a book about it.’ And I I said, ‘That is a really good idea.’”
Since then, "I'm finding that everybody loves fried chicken”.
The book “was very easy to write,” she said. “I started off with 90 fried chicken recipes, and it's only East and Southeast Asia. I wanted to write all of Asia, but I realised it's way too big. Even then, I was able to come up with 90 recipes. I wrote down 90 recipes, tried 90 recipes, and then narrowed it down to 60, because that's what the publishers wanted. The ones I rejected were the ones that didn't 'wow' – when I tested the recipe, I didn't say, ‘Oh my gosh, this is so delicious.'”
Susan Jung's Typhoon Shelter Chicken Wings (Photo: CNA/May Seah)
When she delved into the history of fried chicken in Asia, she found that different cultures had their own unique ways of frying chicken that they could be proud of.
In contrast, “I was looking into the history of fried chicken in the United States. And it’s controversial because it was something made by slaves and appropriated by Colonel Sanders. Thank goodness in Asia, we don't have that to deal with. For me, I don't feel guilty about writing about fried chicken, whereas in the United States, they might feel a little bit more guilty because they would have to address that issue", which is "very important".
As a visitor to Singapore, she said, "you come here and you get fried chicken. You go to Thailand and you have fried chicken. You go to Vietnam and you have fried chicken. In every culture, it's something that's made and loved”.
She observed: “Even among people in the same country, there are different versions. When I was testing my northern Thai fried chicken recipe, I had some friends over for lunch and one of my friends who's from Bangkok said, 'This doesn't taste like Thai fried chicken.' So, the subject can be so broad.”
When considering which of her recipes to make and serve to Singaporean diners, “The one that I thought of automatically was shrimp paste fried chicken, and I have a recipe in the book,” she said. She also got her fix of the dish, also known as har cheong gai, during dinner at Keng Eng Kee Seafood.
But, she eventually chickened – pardon the pun – out. “I said, 'I'm a little scared to serve my version of this to Malaysians and Singaporeans, because I'm sure everybody here has their favourite that they compare everything to. That's why I picked two dishes – one is very unique to Hong Kong, the Typhoon Shelter wings; and the other is Taiwanese Night Market chicken.”
Jung’s Taiwanese Night Market Fried Chicken (Photo: CNA/May Seah)
More recipes in her book include Korean Fire Chicken, Ayam Goreng Berempah, Vietnamese Butter Wings, Japanese Karaage, Thai Crunchy Chicken with Toasted Rice Powder and chicken poppers with instant noodle coating.
After road testing so many recipes, researching and writing about fried chicken, and talking about it all day long to journalists, “I still love fried chicken!” Jung exclaimed.
“I thought that after three months of recipe testing where I made it at least once a day, that I would be sick of fried chicken, but it still excites me. I still love it whenever I taste a new version, and I think, ‘Why didn’t I include this in the book?’ I still get excited about it, and you can't say that about every food. I used to be a pastry chef – will I eat pastries every day? No. But, I could eat fried chicken every day.”
The magic of it is that "chicken is quite a subtle meat, so, it's a blank canvas. You can use whatever spices and herbs you want to flavour it and make it your own”.
It’s also a guiding map for cultural exploration. “I eat fried chicken wherever I travel to. And I'm still learning recipes that I wish I had included in the book because I think fried chicken is so universal. There's fried chicken, I think, probably in every culture, and it's something that's very appealing because, when made well, it's crunchy, juicy and just delicious.”
Kerala Fried Chicken by Mano Thevar (Photo: CNA/May Seah)
Not only is fried chicken a happy food, it is, at times, also Proustian for Jung.
“I think the recipe that's most important to me in the book is my mother's fried chicken. It's the first recipe in the book,” she said. The chicken is coated in corn starch and potato flour, then double fried and finished in the oven with a soy and ginger-based glaze.
“My mother used to make it for me and my brothers when we were young. When I moved away from home, I called up my mother and said, ‘How do you make this?' I was always calling my mum and asking how to make this or that dish. And so, the fried chicken was one of my first recipes.
"When the book came out, I went back to visit my mother and I made it for her. And I was so pleased that I was able to make her my version of her fried chicken,” she said, her eyes misting slightly. “She ate it and said, ‘Oh, it tastes like my fried chicken.’ And I was just really pleased – it was such a compliment and it made me feel like, ‘This is worth it.' It was a real good moment.”
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