Recipe:
Cut the chicken thigh in cubes (the side should be about 2cm long). Skin the garlic and the ginger, mince them. In a bowl, put the diced chicken, and the garlic and ginger. Zest one lemon, mince the zest, and put it in the bowl as well.
Add the Nuoc Mam in the bowl, and if you have some, the mirin and the sesame oil. Knead for 5 minutes, then cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge for minimum 1 hour, or even better: for the whole night.
About 60-40 minutes before the beginning of the meal, prepare the dressing. Press the lemons in a bowl, add the sugar, the salt, the soy sauce, and the 100mL of warm water. Give it a mix.
Skin and mince the ginger. In a rather large frying pan, at high heat, put the oil and the ginger. When the ginger begins to become light brown, add the dressing. Bring to boild while stirring from time to time.
Put the starch in a glass, with the water. Stirr with a fork to dissolve the starch.
When the mixture in the pan has been boiling for about a minute, add the starch/water from the glass while stirring vigorously (that is very important: else, you may end up with a sticky bowl of sauce, and the rest could remain totally liquid). Turn down the stove to very low heat, and leave the pan on it while stirring occasionnally. The dressing should reach a slightly viscous consistency (it'll get thicker while cooling).
Take the chicken out of the fridge. In a fryer, bring the oil to 140°C. Meanwhile, prepare the coating of the chicken: in a bowl put the flour, the starch and the water, mix until you obtain a rather liquid dough. If it is too liquid, it won't stick on the chicken. If it is too thick, you won't be able to coat your chicken with it. So if you need to, add a bit of flour or water to reach the desired concistency.
When the oil in the fryer is at about 130°C, add the baking powder (in the coating mixture! Not in the oil 😉), stirr well, put the chicken in the mix and coat it well with it.
When the oil reachs 140°C, put half of the chicken pieces in it, one by one. Be careful to leave some space between them: if they're too close one to another, they'll stick all together! Stirr gently with a wooden spoon.
When some of them begin to color, remove from the fryer, and let them sit on paper towel. Do the same with the other half.
Now, bring the oil to 180°C. When it reaches 180°C, put the first half of chicken pieces, and stirr gently until they become golden brown. At that moment, remove them from the fryer, and let them sit on paper towel. Do the same with the other half.
Pour the fried chicken in the pan with the dressing, and mix for about 20 seconds to coat all of them with the dressing. Then, put the chicken in a plate. Sprinkle with sesame seeds, minced cives, trim with a couple slices of lemon. You can now serve your marvellous Crispy lemon chicken with glutinuous rice!