Japanese Cookbook日本の台所 · The Japanese Kitchen

Nagoya Tebasaki

手羽先

Nagoya's twice-fried chicken wings — unbattered, lacquered with sweet-soy glaze, hit hard with white pepper and sesame — born at the izakaya Furaibō in 1963.

By Japanese Cookbook Kitchen · May 19, 2026

中部 ChūbuShōwa era, 1926–1989

Nagoya Tebasaki居酒屋
Prep
15 min
Cook
25 min
Serves
4
Level
Intermediate

Tebasaki simply means wing tip, but in Nagoya the word carries a founding date: 1963, when the izakaya Furaibō started twice-frying whole wings, painting them with sweet soy tare, and burying them in white pepper and sesame. The shop's own origin story — a delivery that never came, a founder frying the wings he'd reserved for stock — is told as legend and should be enjoyed as one. The dish's rise is fact. By the 1980s, when the rival chain Sekai no Yamachan opened with a sharper, more peppery version, wings had become Nagoya's after-work religion.

Technically, tebasaki is a small argument against everything wings usually are. No batter, no dunk in sauce — just skin rendered crisp over two fries, glaze applied thin as varnish, and a pepper hit that arrives a beat after the sweetness. Eat them with beer and both hands. Nagoya has a codified technique for stripping a wing in two bites; you'll develop your own by the third one.

Glaze with a brush, not a toss. The wings go from fryer to tare to pepper in under a minute, and a wet dunk undoes the second fry — paint the sauce on thin and let the crackle survive.

板前の一言 · A word from the kitchen

Ingredients材料

Serves 4

Wings

  • 12whole chicken wings, tip on — the tip is traditional and turns to crackling; leave it
  • fine salt
  • 2 tbsppotato starch — the barest dusting — Nagoya wings wear no batter
  • 1 Lneutral oil, for frying

Glaze and finish

  • 4 tbspsoy sauce
  • 3 tbspmirin
  • 2 tbspsugar
  • 1 tbspsake
  • 1 clovegarlic, grated
  • 1 tspwhite pepper, coarsely ground — more than seems polite; this is the Nagoya signature
  • 2 tbsptoasted white sesame

Method作り方

  1. Step 1: Reduce the tare

    Simmer soy, mirin, sugar, sake, and garlic in a small pan until it coats a spoon lightly, about 5 minutes. It thickens more as it cools, so pull it early and keep it warm.

  2. Step 2: Dry and dust the wings

    Pat the wings aggressively dry, salt them lightly, and dust with the thinnest veil of potato starch. There is no batter here — the skin itself is the crust, and moisture is its enemy.

  3. Step 3: First fry, low

    Fry at 160°C for 7 to 8 minutes to render the fat and cook the meat through. The wings will look pale and unpromising. Rest them 5 minutes on a rack while the oil climbs.

  4. Step 4: Second fry, hot

    Return them to 190°C oil for 2 to 3 minutes until deep gold and audibly crisp, tips gone to crackling. The double fry is what lets a glazed wing stay crunchy — one pass alone cannot.

  5. Step 5: Glaze, pepper, sesame

    Brush each wing with tare on both sides, then hit them immediately with white pepper and sesame while the glaze is tacky. Serve hot, with beer, and with no cutlery pretensions whatsoever.

道具 · The tools

Equipment

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  • Grater (oroshigane)

    おろし金

    Fine, wet grating for ginger, daikon oroshi, and fresh wasabi — a Western microplane is close.

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Questions from the kitchen

Is the Furaibō story true?

The documented part: the izakaya Furaibō opened in Nagoya in 1963 and built its name on these wings. The legend attached to it — that the kitchen ran out of its usual bird one night and founder Kōchi Ōtake fried the wings normally destined for the stockpot — is the shop's own telling, repeated with affection and unverifiable. Either way, the wings won, and Sekai no Yamachan arrived in 1981 to argue about pepper quantities.

Why no batter?

Batter would soften under the glaze within minutes. Nagoya's method — bare skin, a whisper of starch, two fries at rising temperatures — builds crispness into the wing itself, so the tare sits on the surface like lacquer instead of soaking into a coat. It is more technique and less costume.

Can I make these in an air fryer?

You'll get a decent glazed wing and lose the point. The rendered-fat crackle of the double fry, especially at the wing tip, doesn't survive the substitution. If deep-frying is off the table, roast hot on a rack, glaze at the end, and call the result what it is — good, and different.

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