Ryuji Remakes the "Tenkasu-Fried Chicken Tenders" That Went Viral on TikTok

According to Ryuji, it started with a fried chicken tender dish he saw on TikTok. He thought the shape of the coating looked odd, and as he watched, he realized it had been coated in tenkasu and fried. The post turned it into chicken nanban, pouring plenty of tartar sauce over chicken tenders thickly caked in tenkasu.

Ryuji found the idea itself interesting. But he felt that piling tartar sauce on top of a tenkasu coating would make "a middle-aged guy's stomach scream." So he decided to make his own version of tenkasu-fried chicken tenders. Instead of tartar sauce, it's meant to be eaten with salt, aonori, and lemon.

It was Hirakawa who suggested featuring this dish in the video. The reason: it has "good visuals." It was also revealed that Hirakawa had already eaten the test version while the book was being made and had been championing this recipe.

The book's recipe is written for 3 chicken tenders (about 150–180 g). Since there were five people that day, they used 5 tenders, about 300 g. Ryuji said you can scale it up to 5 or even 10 tenders.

For the prep, the tendon, which is usually removed, is left in. Lay the tenders on a cutting board and pound them to flatten them out. As Ryuji explained, the flatter they are, the more tender they become, and the tendon stops being noticeable. Recipes by other cooks often say the tendon must be removed, but with this recipe, he says, leaving it in is fine. Hirakawa said they first learned from Ryuji's recipes that you don't have to remove the tendon. Pounding increases the surface area, so the finished pieces end up quite substantial.

Season the pounded tenders with salt and pepper and put them in a bowl.

The batter that forms the base of the coating is made with the following:

• Cake flour: 4 tablespoons
• Water: 5 tablespoons
• Kombu dashi: 2/3 teaspoon
• Ginger: about 10 g

Adding ginger gets rid of the chicken's gamey smell and gives a fresh aroma. When Hirakawa asked whether fresh or tube ginger was better, Ryuji recommended fresh, because to him, tube ginger smells off.

Massage the batter into the tenders, and if it isn't thick enough, add a pinch of flour so the coating clings all over. Ryuji explained that the tenkasu sticks better and the result is more substantial if the batter isn't watery.

Normally, there's also the method of coating in egg before frying. But Ryuji thinks people hesitate to use an egg just for a coating, so he made it work with flour alone. That makes it easier to work into everyday meals. Asked what difference egg makes, Ryuji said it's about texture rather than flavor. Egg makes it puffier and meatier, but for this dish, flour alone is plenty. There's no marinating time; you just coat and fry.

Spread a suitable amount of tenkasu in a tray and press the tenders into it to coat them all over. This becomes the "crunchy" coating. Because the tenders have been pounded and softened, the tenkasu sticks well, and Ryuji said "quite a lot sticks." It takes a little effort.

They used the tenkasu Ryuji normally uses. It contains things like squid tempura bits and has a lot of umami; you can make this with other tenkasu, but using this one makes it much tastier, he says. During the tasting, too, he said using this tenkasu makes it about 1.5 times more delicious.

Ryuji noted that frying with crushed senbei or kaki no tane as a coating has long existed, and positioned this dish as the tenkasu version of that.

Along the way, Hirakawa asked about the difference between agedama and tenkasu. Ryuji answered that they're just different names. From what he'd looked up before, it seems the Kansai region tends to call it "tenkasu" and the Kanto region "agedama," he explained.

Someone also asked whether coating it in so much tenkasu would cause heartburn. Ryuji jokingly said "it varies from person to person," while answering that it won't sit heavy. He also stressed that a single pounded tender is quite large, so one piece fills you up, and that chicken tenders themselves are cheap.

Pour oil about 1 cm deep into a smallish frying pan. Since the tenders were large, they fried them in two batches that day. Oil is expensive, so Ryuji says it's better to fry in a small pan with less oil. He uses rice bran oil himself, but says vegetable oil is fine.

Use medium heat. According to Ryuji, chicken tenders get tough if overfried. Since the tenkasu on the surface is already fried, keeping the frying time to a minimum is the secret to a tender result. Flip after about 2 minutes. Because the tenkasu itself is already fried, fry both sides with the idea of cooking the inside through. It doesn't take long.

Ryuji pointed out that tenkasu frying doesn't dirty the oil much, making it well suited to frying many pieces in a row. It's a good idea to skim out some of the bits that turn black.

Once fried, set them on paper towels to drain. Ryuji especially emphasized this step, showing the oil actually pooling under the paper and repeating that you must always lay down paper. Tenkasu can come across as oily, so adding about two lemon wedges to balance it out makes it delicious, he says.

To finish, since he says it's best eaten with salt, sprinkle on as much Ajishio as you like. Then add aonori to give it an isobe-age style. According to Ryuji, aonori makes it look dramatically more appetizing, and sprinkling it on at the end brings out its aroma to the fullest.

When they tasted it piping hot, the cast's reactions included "super delicious," "great texture," and "not greasy." Hirakawa said it was the first time they had eaten it freshly fried. Ryuji explained that cookbook photo shoots proceed at a breakneck pace, so you never get to eat things fresh out of the fryer.

On the texture, Ryuji said it has a crunch unlike either tempura or a flour coating, the inside is juicy, and thanks to the pounding, the tendon isn't noticeable at all. He also said the aonori is essential.

As for why the tenders turn out so tender, Ryuji explained it this way. Depending on how you cook them, chicken tenders can dry out. But in this recipe, the frying time is very short, and the residual heat cooks them through to the center while they drain after frying, so they come out really tender.

Other points came up too: it works as a main dish or as a snack with drinks, and it's good even cold, so you can use it in bento. There was also the comment that because the tenkasu has already been fried once, it's crispy and has "a snack-like quality, in a good way." Ryuji said that Japan has a tradition of "okaki-age," frying things coated in senbei or kaki no tane, and that this is close to it. At the end, he joked that the coating is tenkasu but the inside is healthy chicken tenders, so "it about cancels out."

Every recipe in the new book uses chicken, with 108 recipes in total. It has the most karaage recipes of any of Ryuji's cookbooks. Asked who they'd like to read it, Hirakawa answered that they'd like not only people who cook every day but also beginners to pick it up, because many of the recipes are simple, and they're cheap, delicious, and high in protein. Ryuji also said that when he was young, he'd buy 2 kg of chicken at the supermarket and eat nothing but chicken.

The release date is November 28. Ryuji stressed that the cover may look silly but the contents are serious. He also mentioned that many of the recipes have never been published before.

Hirakawa revealed that the first print run is 27,000 copies. Orders from bookstores came in strong from the start, too. When Ryuji confirmed that in the cookbook world, selling 20,000 copies is considered a hit, Hirakawa agreed. Hirakawa also said that few books sell 20,000 copies these days, and a first print run of 27,000 is quite rare for their company.

Asked about the first print run of his debut book, Ryuji recalled that in his case it was about 6,000 copies. After he announced it, a lot of preorders came in, so a reprint was decided, and it reached about 10,000 copies before release.

The publisher this time is Fusosha, which also published Ryuji's debut book. Ryuji talked about how things went back when he debuted. At the time, two publishers approached him about doing a cookbook. The major publisher Kadokawa's condition was "Let's publish once you reach X tens of thousands of followers." Fusosha's editor, on the other hand, said, "Follower count doesn't matter; if it's a good book, it'll sell, so let's do it." Ryuji chose them.

Ryuji says it was because of that one remark from the editor that he published his first cookbook with Fusosha, and the relationship continues now, about eight years later. Ryuji's conclusion was that work is about passion, and he addressed editors and working people everywhere, saying, "That's what it comes down to."

Hirakawa is 24 years old and took over as Ryuji's editor at Fusosha partway through. What impressed Ryuji, he says, was Hirakawa's passion. Hirakawa actually made almost all of Ryuji's recipes and came back with questions like, "This was delicious, but I didn't understand this part." Ryuji points out that some people do this work without ever making a single recipe. He himself actually buys and eats the products of the companies he works with to understand their content, so he was moved to find a young person who could do the same.

Related to this, Ryuji told young viewers that "rather than rebelling against the old guys, you're better off using them." That's because people of the older generation in their 40s and 50s take it as someone doing a proper job when a young person shows even a little motivation. But he quickly added that he wasn't saying that's what Hirakawa was doing.

Hirakawa became an editor because of a love of books. Hirakawa originally joined the company wanting to work on magazines, but was assigned to book editing and became Ryuji's editor. Hirakawa likes gourmet magazines and loves eating. Ryuji responded that he'd sensed that from the way Hirakawa made every recipe.

During production, it seems Ryuji gave Hirakawa some pretty harsh feedback. A staff member even "tattled" that they'd felt sorry for Hirakawa watching Ryuji be harsh online. Ryuji himself admitted it. Ryuji upholds a "user-first" approach, and explained that he wanted to convey the perspective of how someone who can't cook would feel when they buy this book and flip through its pages intending to cook every day. He also said he wishes he could say it a bit more gently, but he can't. Hirakawa replied that making the book was fun, including being told harsh things. The two looked back on it as having become a good book partly because of those exchanges.

Finally, the conversation turned to the current state of the publishing industry. Hirakawa said publishing is incredibly tough right now, and the reason is that books don't sell. Ryuji remarked that its heyday must have been amazing, and brought up that, at Fusosha, ESSE must have been strong. The conversation ends as they mention that Fusosha is also putting out several ESSE titles around the same time as this book.