Cantonese Crispy Garlic Chicken Wings (风沙鸡翼)

Crispy Garlic Chicken... wings. After a long time of trying to figure out Cantonese crispy skin chicken sans oven, we just could never quite figure out the whole bird. A hacked together wing version, though, turned out delicious enough.

0:00 - Intro: the unobtainable chicken
1:07 - Marinate and Poach
2:10 - Coat with Crispy Skin Liquid
3:20 - Dry, with fan or fridge
4:13 - 3 Methods to Cook
4:30 - 1, Oil Ladling
5:06 - 2, Shallow Fry
5:48 - 3, Oil & Bake
6:17 - Intro to Garlic Sand (风沙)
6:46 - How to Make Deep Fried Garlic
7:42 - Make the Garlic Sand
8:18 - How Crispy is Crispy?

INGREDIENTS

20-30 chicken wings (鸡中翅) - flats are preferable here.

For the marinade:

Peeled garlic, 500g or three heads of garlic, peeled.
Soy sauce (生抽), 100g
Fish sauce (鱼露), 100g
Salt, 45g
Chicken Bouillon Powder (鸡粉), 15g
Garlic powder, optional, 1 tsp
Water, 1 liter

Note: if you're looking to cut down on garlic quantity, you can go all the way down to 2 heads of garlic if you up the garlic powder quantity to, say, 2 tsp.

For the crispy skin liquid:

1 part maltose (麦芽糖) or golden syrup or cheap honey, ~15g
3 parts vinegar (白醋), ~45g
Squeeze of lemon, ~3g

Note: Chinese white vinegar is 3.5% acetic acid compared to Heinz's 5%. So if you're using Heinz, let's just minimize variables here and call for 1 part maltose/syrup, 1 part water, 2 parts Heinz white vinegar

For the garlic sand:

Deep fried garlic, 25g or 30g garlic and 30g shallot (干葱) if frying yourself
Panko (preferably Chinese style), 25g
Chicken bouillon powder (鸡粉), 5g
Salt, 1/4 tsp
Sugar, 1/4 tsp
MSG (味精), 1/4 tsp

PROCESS

The way I'd personally organize myself here is to start the previous evening. Make the marinade (1:24), marinate the wings (1:36). As I'm marinating the wings, I'd mince/deep fry the garlic (6:46) and the shallot & make the garlic sand - that stuff'll definitely last til the next day (keep at room temperature though). Make the crispy skin liquid (2:33).

That should have given you about 60-90 minutes of marination time, which's good enough. Poach (1:55), rinse (3:00), coat with the crispy skin liquid (3:09). Toss in the fridge.

Next day a bit before dinnertime, evaluate the wings (4:07). If they're a little on the wet side, finish them in front of the fan for an hour. Then just go ahead with your cooking method of choice (4:14)! Remember the pre-oiling (5:49) though with either the oven or the air fryer - it's an easy step to forget.

And in case you didn't catch that note in the video, for the air fryer, go with 11 minutes at 400 Fahrenheit (205C). Huge thanks to Hendrick for trying that out.

And check out our Patreon if you'd like to support the project!
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Outro Music: คิดถึงคุณจัง by ธานินทร์ อินทรเทพ
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