Garlic fried rice is such a norm dish in Japanese restaurants that one never realizes one can make it right at home too, very easily in fact. At least that was my case. Haha My sister cooked a very perfume-y butter infused garlic fried rice recently for her packed lunch, and that got me inspire to cook for my mom’s and my own packed lunch. While she had a vegan patty to accompany her garlic fried rice, I choose to go with the more straightforward route, that is with prawns (ebi エビ in Japanese).
Fried prawns were what I had in mind. That’s when I stumbled upon tatsuta-age. Both tatsuta-age 竜田揚げ and the more common karaage 唐揚げ has the -age ending which means deep-fried. But what are their differences? For tatsuta-age, the ingredient is marinated and then coated with potato starch and fried. For karaage, the ingredient is coated with seasoned wheat flour and deep fried. Although karaage nowadays are mostly marinated as well. Confuse still? The main differentiator is the use of non-similar coating; potato starch vs wheat flour. If you find a karaage using potato starch, most likely it’s actually a tatsuta-age. Do correct me if I’m wrong.
Japanese garlic fried rice with ebi tatsuta-age. ❤️
