CWF Part 4: Spicy Honey Lemon Drumettes

This is the fourth and last in the four-part "Chicken Wing Fourplay" (CWF) series. The inspiration for this is pretty obvious. I'm quite the fan of buffalo wings and although I was always pretty disappointed with the "extremely hot" level that I got from the "Buffalo Wild Wings - Grill and Bar" in the States, I still find myself back there for some wings and to watch sport on the big screens.

I've always been rather amused (I guess I'm easily amused heh) with their pager system, not only does this thing vibrate but it flashes as well. That's really what I need before my dinner, a moment of hysteria haha.

Ingredients:

1. HP sauce, chilli sauce, honey, barbecue sauce, grated parmesan (basically any random thing you can find in your fridge that's tangy and spicy)
2. Drumettes
3. Salt and pepper
4. Plain flour
5. Lemon

Method:

1. Marinate the drumettes with salt and pepper
2. Coat with plain flour

3. Deep-fry the drumettes till just about cooked

4. Pour your sauces and other random condiments onto your drumettes

5. Mix well
6. Bake in the oven at about 180degC (non fan-forced) at 10 minute intervals

7. Stir the wings to evenly distribute the sauce at each interval

8. Continue to do this until a nicely charred texture and thick, saucy glazed consistency is achieved
9. Squeeze in some fresh lemon juice and stir just before serving

Serve hot!

Hence ends my little four-part series on how to jazz up your little humble chicken wing. I hope you have enjoyed reading this as much as I did creating it.

D

CWF Part 3: Deep-fried Stuffed Wings (Canh Go Nhoi Thit)

This is the third in the four-part "Chicken Wing Fourplay" (CWF) series and is really the dish which started it all. This dish gave me the inspiration to create this little medley of various styles for cooking the chicken wing.

I wanted to include the word "traditional" in the name for this dish but I'm actually really not very sure if it's "traditional". I first had stuffed chicken wings in a Vietnamese restaurant and they were deep-fried. My qualms about whether this is really a traditional dish or not are not unfounded because I seemed to be the only person ordering them and from the English menu at that hmm... this reminds me of some Chinese restaurants where there are two menus as well, and yes, I'm quite ashamed to admit it but sometimes I do feel like eating sweet and sour pork, lemon chicken and eggrolls or pseudo-Asian food as I call it (I think the buzzword now is "fusion"? Haha). I've encountered, more than once mind you, a waiter who whispered in my ear, "You sure you want to eat that? That's what the non-Chinese eat". Well, looks like I have totally digressed from the main topic again!

I did sound out some of my Vietnamese friends and it seems that deep-fried stuffed chicken wings are somewhat of a Vietnamese dish known as "Canh Go Nhoi Thit" and after eating this appetizer (as they usually are served as) a few times, I thought to myself, "Hey, I've eaten this so many times, I know what's in it. Why not just make them myself?" and that's pretty much how this recipe was created. This is actually the predecessor to the "Viet-Do" and I guess in the end is somewhat more "traditional".

Ingredients:

1. Deboned mid-joints (please refer to Viet-Do for the "instructional")
2. Salt and pepper
3. Fish sauce
4. Rice flour
5. Filling (please refer to Viet-Do again)

Method:
1. Season the deboned mid-joints with salt, pepper and fish sauce

2. Add in the filling
3. Coat lightly in rice flour

4. Deep-fry

Hint:
1. I left the wing tips intact for this purposely because:
a. Cutting it off creates a "tube" which isn't a good idea for deep-frying because the filling may spill out
b. This is how it's always been served in the Vietnamese joints that I frequent
c. The wingtip makes a great handle for you to hold onto this tasty morsel haha!

2. You can use a light batter instead of just coating it in flour if you so wish
3. This goes very well with the sweet fish sauce used for Vietnamese spring rolls or plum sauce as a lesser substitute

Serve hot!

As with the "Viet-Do", I've included whole scallops and prawns again in this just to make it slightly a bit more special.

D

CWF Part 2: Spicy French Onion Drumettes

This is the second in the four-part "Chicken Wing Fourplay" (CWF) series and is slightly less complex than the first. It still tastes awfully good though. I cannot recall when was the last time I actually used French onion soup powder to make French onion soup. It is however, an excellent seasoning for fried chicken and when mixed into sourcream; a great dip. After using the mid-joint to create a stuff chicken wing in the Viet-Do, the other half begged some attention. As such, I decided to create a simple and straight-forward tasty treat.

Ingredients:
1. Drumettes
2. Salt and pepper
3. Chilli powder

4. French onion soup powder
5. Rice flour
6. Soy sauce

Method:

1. Mix the drumettes with the salt, pepper, chilli powder, French onion soup powder and soy sauce
2. Leave the drumettes to marinate for an hour at least
3. Coat in a thin layer of rice flour

4. Deep-fry till crimson brown

Hint:
1. Chilli powder tends to get "burnt" very easily, so please use well thawed drumettes and a moderate heat to prevent this from happening

Sprinkle on some Japanese chilli flakes and serve hot!

D

CWF Part 1: Enter the Viet-Do

This is the first in the four-part "Chicken Wing Fourplay" (CWF) series and sets the foundation for the other three recipes as well. I thought it'll be good to post this one first so I won't repeat myself unnecessarily in the rest.

Ingredients:

*For the Wings*
1. Chicken wings
2. Salt and pepper
3. Fish sauce

*For the Filling*

1. Shredded carrot
2. Minced pork
3. Soaked bean vermicelli
4. Chopped water chestnut
5. Prawns and scallops
6. Chinese black fungus
7. Salt and pepper
8. Soaked Chinese mushrooms
9. Crab meat

*For the Rub*
1. Pounded lemon grass stalks
2. Sesame oil

*For the Basting Sauce*

1. Coconut cream
2. Indonesian sweet thick soy sauce (kecap manis)
3. Fried shallot oil
4. Fried shallots
5. Honey

Method:

*Deboning the Mid-joint*

1. Expose the elbow joint (the joint between the mid-joint and the drumette)

2. With a cleaver, cleanly cut the region of the ulna and radius (the two bones in the mid-joint) just before the elbow joint

3. Use your hands to fracture the wrist joint (the joint between the wing tip and the mid-joint)
4. Create a clean incision with a sharp knife

5. Twist and remove the ulna and radius through the little incision created at the wrist joint

6. There you go, a nicely deboned mid-joint. Pretty easy eh? Deboning a whole bird is another thing altogether, but let's leave that for another day shall we?

*Stuffing the Wing*
1. Seasoned the wing with some salt, pepper and fish sauce

2. Mix the filling (this is where I added the Chinese black fungus which I forgot to include in the picture of ingredients above)

3. Put in some of the filling supporting one end of the wing with your palm. I actually cut off the wing tip for the Viet-Do so it becomes a little tube. This allows me to place the complete pieces more efficiently on my rack for roasting later on

4. Stuff in a prawn and scallop

5. Top up with more filling

*Pre-roasting Rub*
1. Mix the pounded lemon grass and sesame oil to form a paste

2. Coat the stuffed wing in some of the rub
3. Let it sit with the rub for at least an hour

*Roasting the Viet-Do*

1. Put them on a rack
2. Roast at about 160degC

*Making the Basting Sauce*
1. While the Viet-Do wings are roasting, prepare the basting sauce
2. Mix some coconut cream, kecap manis, honey and fried shallot oil in a pan

3. Stir till semi-thick (a slight bit should cling to your stirring spoon when you lift it)

*Basting the Viet-Do*
1. After about 30-40minutes, the wings should be about cooked

2. Baste generously with the basting sauce
3. Place the wings back in the oven and turn the heat up to 180degC
4. Continue basting the wings every 5-10minutes until the sauce is expended
5. A nice caramelized surface would form after awhile

Top with some crispy fried shallots and serve hot!

I appreciate a twist in a movie if it's done well. Likewise, I like to create food with a little twist as well. Stuffed wings aren't that common to begin with, so your dining partner(s) might go, "Wow, interesting." and once they take a bite of it and hit a juicy and succulent prawn or scallop (the twist) they'll be blown away even further haha!

I named this dish "Viet-Do" because the first time I had a stuffed chicken wing was in a Vietnamese restaurant. The use of coconut cream and kecap manis gave this dish the Indonesian influence, hence the term "Viet-Do".

Hmm, it almost sounds like a new martial art doesn't it? "Hey mister, you want to mess with me? Wait I Viet-Do your ass!" Hahahaha!

D

Chicken Wing Fourplay - Preamble

I've always enjoyed eating chicken wings since I was a kid. During my student days, chicken wings found a special place in my heart because they were cost-effective (read as "cheap" haha). Sure they were cheaper than other meats (as low as 1.50 to 2.00AUD per kg at times) but they still had a nice balance of fat and tender meat which made them rather delectable.

The chicken wing is also extremely versatile and can be tossed up as a dish in many ways, be it grilled, barbecued, stir-fried, boiled, curried etc. After awhile though, the generic and coventional methods of cooking the modest chicken wing eventually did become rather monotonous. Through a few months of cooking chicken wings, I realised that I had begun to scrape the bottom of the chicken wing recipe barrel. That's when I decided to conjure up new ways to jazz up this "poor man's" cut. I wasn't going to give up on my chicken wing!

As the saying goes, "Necessity is the Mother of Invention."; may I be so bold as to add, "But Desperation is the Father of Necessity." This series entitled Chicken Wing Fourplay (CWF) will consist of four posts, each focusing on a different (hopefully interesting?) style of cooking the simple and humble chicken wing.

Stay tuned...

D

Old Mother Hen, Sims Ave, Singapore

So here I was in the Geylang district looking for "Old Mother Hen". Er, no, I wasn't feeling frisky that night. I was however, (surprise surprise) feeling hungry! This place was recommended by a friend to be pretty kickass so I had to check it out.

This place is popular for some of their claypot dishes. They use a mix of old-school charcoal and gas as the heating elements here. I guess this sort of incorporates the best of both worlds.

We started off with this black herbal chicken soup. Apparently this is like a tonic and is supposedly healthy for you. I enjoy starting the meal on a healthy note, so I wouldn't feel that guilty when it goes downhill from there into sinful greasy indulgences haha.

A friend of my professed that the claypot rice here is as good, if not better than the famous one along the main Geylang strip. I haven't tried the "famous one" so I can't say if it's true. I can however, profess that this was possibly the best claypot rice I've had in Singapore. Whilst it was being stirred by the server, it exuberated this fragrance which was simply brilliant.

The stirring process mixes the oil, soy sauce and ingredients about evenly and also coats the claypot with a nice layer of crispy rice bits which is always ever so fun to scrape off and chomp down later.

This awesome flavor is made up of a concoction of sauces and the quality ingredients of Chinese pork sausage, Chinese liver sausage, chicken, salted fish and salted egg yolks.

Finally, a decent Singaporean version of salt and pepper squid. Encased in a light and crisp batter which gave way to reveal soft and tender squid flesh, this goes great with beer.

This is very similar to the egg white, crabmeat and broccoli dish from Cheng Li Yuan except this came sans the broccoli. It did start to taste a bit "heavy" after awhile, there should have been some red or black vinegar to go with this. Next time I'll ask for some.

The nam lu pork here was fried to the right texture and the cut had the right balance of fat and meat. It was a bit too salty though, nevertheless, it was great beer nibbles.

This was the toughest contender against the claypot rice for Top Dish tonight. Their home-made special beancurd was fried to a super crisp finish externally but yielded to soft, delicate beancurd. It was topped off with a gravy containing minced pork and crispy lard bits! Extremely delicious.

Another recommended dish, I thought this fried broad rice noodle tasted only ok. I mean, it was better than average but it paled in comparison to the rest of the dishes. I still prefer the beef version from Fatty Weng's. The meal was finished with some hot Chinese tea.

Yes, that's right, hot Chinese tea just melts all that grease away so you simply can't absorb it haha. The trick to eating is to start the meal healthy (herbal chicken soup) and end it healthy (Chinese tea) whatever happens in between doesn't matter haha.

I'll definitely come back here again to try out the other stuff. They did seem to have a rather decent selection of crab dishes as well. This dinner only cost us 48SGD, there is simply no reason not to try out this joint.

D

Crispy Lard Bits

The crispy lard bit is an essential condiment in Chinese coffeeshop eateries (Zi Chars). Crispy lard bits are also a tasty snack by themselves. They're extremely easy to make and the oil that's released from the pork lard is great for use in cooking later on!

Ingredients:

1. Pork fat
2. Salt and pepper

Method:

1. Chop pork fat into small pieces

2. Fry at low heat to release the oil

3. Remove the bits when they have turned golden brown
4. Cool till crisp

5. Sprinkle salt and pepper to taste

Hint:
1. Do not fry the bits till they are crisp or else they will be too hard when cooled, the cooling process actually makes the bits go crunchy
2. You can buy pork fat from most butchers but I normally just use the fatty layer from a slab of belly pork (my favorite cut for pork dishes)

D