A copycat recipe of “Tori Kurozu-An” from Ootoya, this Japanese-style Sweet and Sour Chicken uses black rice vinegar in the sauce to create a deep, malty savory flavor.
Sweet and sour dishes from Chinese restaurants are really popular and my children love them whether it’s made with chicken or pork. This Sweet and Sour Chicken however is a little bit different from the typical one you’ve tried. Why?
Watch How To Make Ootoya’s Sweet and Sour Chicken (Tori Kurozu-An)
This savory and delicious fried chicken and vegetables with sweet black vinegar sauce is a copycat recipe of “Tori Kurozu-An” from Ootoya 大戸屋 restaurant.
Japanese Sweet and Sour Chicken
First of all, this sweet and sour chicken is a Japanese style. Did you notice there are several kinds of vegetables in the sweet and sour chicken? This is a copycat recipe from a popular Japanese diner – Ootoya (大戸屋) which specializes in Japanese home-cooking dishes (Katei Ryori 家庭料理). Some of you may be familiar with this restaurant as there are many Ootoya restaurants both in Japan and outside of Japan, including Singapore, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and also two locations in NYC.
In Japan, we refer to the sweet and sour sauce as Amazu-An (甘酢あん), literary meaning sweet vinegar gravy. On Ootoya’s menu, this recipe is called Tori Kurozu-An (鶏と野菜の黒酢あん), using black rice vinegar (黒酢, Kurozu) in the sweet and sour sauce. Black rice vinegar is an aged vinegar made from rice and it is less sour and has a deeper flavor compared to regular rice vinegar. Also, their version of sweet and sour sauce omits ketchup so you don’t see the typical red color in the sauce.
This sweet and sour chicken has been my favorite from Ootoya’s menu since I tried this dish for the first time years and years ago. When I was in Japan last summer, I shared a picture of this dish while dining there on Instagram. @alisasakura from Australia left a comment on my picture saying that Ootoya actually sells a pre-made package of this special Kurozu-An sauce. So the next time I passed by the restaurant, I bought two packages to try at home (thank you again, @alisasakura!).
Packaged vs. Homemade Sweet and Sour Chicken
After coming back to the US, I made this dish at home with the packaged sauce and tried to recreate this flavor. While testing my own recipe, I found out Ootoya actually shares the recipe for this dish online! So I made 3 batches for the taste test:
- The recipe made with Ootoya’s package sauce
- Follow Ootoya’s recipe to make the sauce
- My version of Ootoya’s sauce
Our family had a serious tasting session for this recipe and one sauce won everyone’s votes for the best flavor. It was actually mine! My version was not that different from the original sauce, but in my humble opinion, I think mine has a better balance than the packaged one or the Ootoya’s recipe. However, I still think the restaurant serves the best Tori Kurozu-An, but for home cooking, my family agrees that my recipe below was the best. I wrote down the exact measurements I used so please try to be accurate for the best result.
Before sharing the video and recipe, I want to quickly mention a Japanese cooking technique called Suage (素揚げ, Su-Ah-geh). It means deep-frying without a coating of flour or batter. This technique is used mostly for vegetables (but sometimes meat too). By deep-frying vegetables for a short period of time, you can keep the crispness of the vegetable. Stir-frying vegetables take longer and sometimes the vegetables are cooked unevenly or tend to be wilted and soft. Suage technique helps the ingredient keep its original flavor, color, and shape.
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Sweet and Sour Chicken (Ootoya Tori Kurozu-An)
Video
Ingredients
- 2 chicken thighs (11 oz, 312 g)
- 3 potatoes
- 3 inch lotus root (renkon)
- ½ carrot
- 1 Japanese/Chinese eggplant
- ½ onion
- ½ green pepper
- ½ cup potato starch/cornstarch
- 3 cups neutral-flavored oil (vegetable, rice bran, canola, etc) (for deep frying)
Black Vinegar Sauce:
- 4 Tbsp sugar
- 3 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 2 Tbsp soy sauce
- 1 Tbsp black vinegar (If you use Chinese black vinegar, use ½ Tbsp as it has a stronger flavor)
- 1 Tbsp mirin
- 1 Tbsp water
- 1 Tbsp sake
- 2 tsp potato starch/cornstarch
Instructions
- Gather all the ingredients.
- Make the marinade. Grate the ginger and garlic. Combine the ginger, garlic, soy sauce and sake in a large bowl.
- Trim off and discard any excess fat from the chicken, then cut the meat into bite size pieces and add them to the marinade. Cover and refrigerate for 10 min.
- Combine all the ingredients for Black Vinegar Sauce and mix well together.
- Cut the potato in half and carrot into small pieces. For the carrot, I use the "rangiri" cutting technique to create more surface space so that they will cook faster and look pretty.
- Potatoes and carrots take too long to deep fry; therefore we boil them first for 10 minutes until they are tender. Drain and set aside.
- Cut the lotus root to ⅛" (3 mm) slices and eggplant into ½” (1.3 cm) slices.
- Cut onion and green peppers in wedges and cut half in length-wise.
- In a deep fryer or heavy-bottomed pot, add 3 cups of oil. Depending on the size of your pot, you will need more or less oil to have at least 2 inches (5 cm) of oil in the pot. If you are new to deep-frying, read the post about how to deep fry here. Preheat the oil to 340ºF (170ºC). Using a paper towel, pat dry the vegetables before you add them to the oil. Deep fry until they’re tender. Be careful not to over/under cook. When they’re done, drain the oil on a wire rack or paper towel.
- Next, coat the chicken in potato starch and deep fry at 340ºF (170ºC) for 5 minutes or until golden brown. If the chicken is being browned too quickly, adjust the heat and make sure the chicken is cooked through. Drain the oil well on a wire rack or paper towel.
- When the chicken is done deep frying, heat the wok and toss the deep-fried vegetables and chicken together. When they are re-heated evenly, pour the Black Vinegar Sauce over the chicken and vegetables, toss and combine. Transfer to a plate and serve.
To Store
- You can keep the leftovers in an airtight container and store in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
Notes
Thanks for sharing this recipe! I’ve always kept and used black vinegar in my pantry, but never quite knew the technical difference between black vinegar and the regular stuff until reading your explanation. In other news, I made your kakuni recipe for a recent potluck, and the dish was a major hit!! =)
Hi Kimmi! I always carried Chinese black vinegar but never actually used Japanese black vinegar till this recipe! I’m so happy to hear everyone enjoyed the kakuni recipe! Thank you so much for your feedback! 🙂
Thats ok! 🙂 Glad I could help! 😉
I’m so so so excited to make this! I’m going to show my mum and we will try and make it! I’ll make sure I take a picture once I do!
Do Japanese supermarkets/stores in the states have Japanese black vinegar? I’m not sure if I’ve seen it here in Australia before.
Hi Alisa Sakura! Thank you for stopping by! Without your tip on the sauce, this post probably didn’t exist. 😉
Yes, Japanese supermarkets carry black vinegar. Not many kinds though, just 1-3 kinds, but the cost is about $8-10 I think… I got mine in Japan (in case I couldn’t find in the US) but it was also around $10. It’s Japanese black vinegar, so you won’t find it unless in a Japanese grocery store…it’s not a condiment we use all the time, so some Japanese supermarkets may not even carry it. :/
I have been trying to figure this recipe out for YEARS…ever since having it at Ootoyo… I’m so glad I stumbled upon your website!!!! I am curious about your Black Vinegar though… I haven’t seen the Japanese stuff anywhere… could you recommend a brand to buy online? THANKS NAMI!!!
Hi Gary! I’m happy to hear your found my blog. 🙂 I’m not sure where you live but Japanese supermarkets carry 1-2 kinds of black vinegar. Here’s one from Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000FQNWBS/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1417319245&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SY200_QL40
You can use a Chinese black vinegar but they tend to be stronger so you need to adjust the amount. 🙂
While living in Japan for several years this Ootoya dish quickly became our favorite family comfort food. You have no idea how happy I am to have stumbled upon your site! I can’t wait to make this as a surprise for my family. Oishii!
Hi Amanda! I hope you enjoy this recipe! I’m in Japan now and I am trying to go to Ootoya to enjoy this dish one of these days…. 😀 Hope you can find your favorite Japanese recipes on my site. 🙂 Welcome to my blog!
Great recipe! I made it yesterday and it is so far the best sweet-sour sauce I have ever tried 🙂 What I didn’t like that much are the deep-fried vegetables. It is impossible to make them crispy without batter, so in the end they all turned out mushy and soft. Next time I will stir fry-them for a short time separtly so that they stay a little bit crunchy 🙂
Wonderful recipe, thanks for sharing Nami!
Hi Alina! I hear you, I had to cook the same way Ootoya restaurant cooks so that I can say it’s the “copycat” recipe from Ootoya, Please feel free to adapt as you like! Glad to hear you enjoyed this recipe. Thank you for your kind feedback, Alina!
Ever since I had the appetizer portion at Ootoya in Chelsea, I’ve been hooked! I had two friends over for dinner and one of them had just had this dish the day before. The bar was high but it definitely turned out above our expectations! It tasted just as good and we were glad to have doubled the recipe.
The most challenging part was deep frying the vegetables; we were unclear as to how long to fry the different veggies, which needed a bit of a trial and error process. I was a bit speculative with the sauce but it thickened very well once thrown with the fried ingredients over heat. All we needed was a bowl of rice and a nice miso soup to help cleanse the palate. Thank your for posting the recipe! Cheers.
Hi Su! I’m happy that you got to try this menu at Ootoya and tried making it at home! Thanks for using my recipe. The suage (deep frying without batter) part is a bit tricky. I didn’t purposely write the cooking time as it can vary depending on the oil temperature. Even though I specify, not everyone has the thermometer and oil may not be the same temperature, and only our eyes can tell the tenderness of the vegetables after deep frying. I apologize about the little confusion and inconvenience you had. I’m glad you and your friends enjoyed this dish. It takes time to prep, deep fry and cook all together so I don’t make this often, but I kind of miss this recipe now. Thank you for your kind feedback! 🙂
Thanks for the recipe! Do you know how long the vegetables and the chicken should be deep fried until it’s cooked?
Hi Gigi! It depends on vegetables and how big you cut, but should be 1-2 minutes (root vegetables longer). Chicken is about 5 minutes at the right temperature as written in the recipe. Cooking time shouldn’t be the focus here, you need to know if each ingredient (thin, thick, soft, hard, all different texture and size affects cooking time) is tender. You need to see the actual food rather than the cooking time and this is very important. 🙂 If your oil is higher temp, don’t wait till 5 minutes because the recipe says so. You might need to adjust. 🙂 Hope this makes sense.
Hi there, I have just found your website and have made two recipes so far and they were beautiful! So your site is my now ‘go to’ for recipes! Is there a substitute I could use for the black vinegar? I love in the far north of New Zealand and we don’t have much in the way of speciality foods. Thank you so much for the fantastic recipes!
Hi Amber! I’m so sorry for my late response. I’ve been a bit busy… Thanks for finding my site, and welcome to JOC! Glad to hear you enjoyed my recipes. 🙂 You can use regular vinegar – preferably rice vinegar as it’s milder than other kinds of vinegar (and in Japanese cooking, we use rice vinegar). If you use other vinegar, reduce a bit since it’s too strong. 🙂
hi! Nami. Just cooked this tonight for dinner (sans lotus root) . Was skeptical about the apple cider vinegar at first (been using ketchup for this type of dish)…. But lo and behold, I loved the combination of flavors 🙂 No leftovers again tonight 🙂 Have been trying many recipes found over the net and there have been definitely a lot of hit and miss ones. This is definitely a hit. So much so that my sister said that we can now add it to the list of dishes worth repeating ….. Thank you so much!
Hi Gladys! Thank you so much for trying this recipe and for your kind feedback. I’m so happy you liked it! 🙂 . I’m glad your sister liked it too. Thank you for your kind words. xo
Hi can I check with you.. if I do not want to use Apple cider vinegar, what can I substitute with ?
Hi Michelle! How about trying with rice vinegar? Maybe use 2 Tbsp, and may need to add a bit sugar as apple cider has slight sweetness to it.
This is one of my favorites from Ootoya, so I was glad to find it! I found that 10 minutes was too long for the carrots and potatoes for my preference, so I’d change that in the future. And maybe I’d sub some of the apple vinegar for more black vinegar, but that depends so much on which kinds you have around and what you like.
Hi M! Thank you so much for trying this recipe and for providing your feedback! Hope next one will be just like how you would like it to be. It’s great to be able to make our favorite food from restaurants at home. 🙂 Thanks again!
Hi Nami, is there any substitute for the black vinegar?
Hi NJ! You can use other vinegar you have. 🙂
Today I made it, tasted so good. i cannot believe I can make this!! my family loved it so much. thanks for your recipe!!!
Hi Eunice! Yay!!! I’m so happy to hear you gave this (time-consuming!) recipe! I like this dish too. I’m glad your family enjoyed it. Thank you for your kind feedback. xo
Hi Nami
I just want to thank you for this flavourful Ootoya Sweet and Sour Chicken Recipe. It is a real hit with my family. I have also tried replacing the chicken meat with pork and it turns out just as beautifully. Am also glad to be able to replace the ketchup used in most sweet and sour dishes with healthier ingredients like black vinegar, apple cider vinegar and soy (we are thankful that these sauces are found commonly in Singapore). I try to cook something from your list of recipes at least once a week. Thank you again and stay healthy. Love your new pet dog.
Best
CA
Hi Catherine-Ann! Aww thank you so much for trying this recipe! I’m so glad your family enjoyed both chicken and pork versions! That’s wonderful to hear both came out well. Thank you for your kind feedback. xoxo
I doubled the amount of sauce for a Costco 2-pack of chicken wings (about 28 pcs.). Kicked it up by sprinkling a handful of chopped green onions and a half-cup of finely chopped pan roasted peanuts to add a Cantonese touch.
Hi Mike!
Wow, 28 pcs chicken wings! We are so glad to hear you enjoyed it with Cantonese touch.
Thank you very much for trying this recipe and for your kind feedback!
I made this tonight and it’s super delicious! Thanks for sharing this recipe Nami!
My family loved it too. ❤️
Hi Jacqueline, Thank you very much for trying this recipe! We are so happy to hear your family enjoyed this dish!
Wow, I cooked this and it was so delicious! I didn’t deep fry the veg, but I roasted the potatoes, carrots and some Jerusalem artichokes in the oven before adding to the rest of the stir fried veges. Also I used just normal Japanese vinegar. Better than Ootoya for sure!
Hi Renee! Yay!👏🏻 We are so happy to hear this turned out delicious! Thank you very much for trying this recipe and sharing your cooking experience with us!