Cantonese Crispy Garlic Chicken Wings (风沙鸡翼)

The wing version of my cooking white whale.

This is my cooking white whale:

It’s this Cantonese chicken dish, Tsui Pei Gai, that is… the perfect chicken. The meat? Tender. The skin? Crispy. And somehow in the process they figured a way to pack a ton of flavor inside as well – my favorite is the garlic sort.

We've been wanting to teach you the dish for a while, but unfortunately most restaurants tend to get there by using one of these classic Cantonese hanging ovens at least somewhere along the way:

That said, there are alternative oven-free approaches out there that involve this mix of poaching and ladling hot oil over the skin. But after months, years even, of trying different things we just… could never really quite get there.

Maybe we will someday, maybe we won't, or, I dunno, maybe one day we'll just end up breaking down and trying to squeeze a one meter oven onto a two meter balcony. But over the course of this perpetually frustrating journey, we did found that said poach and ladle method does seems to work phenomenally on.. the wings.

So while my white whale is still out there nagging me, if you can forgive us for doing a bit of a creative interpretation… at the very least, I think we can make a pretty damn tasty garlic-y chicken wing:

Cantonese Crispy Garlic Wings

• Chicken wings (鸡中翅), 20-30. 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, 1 tsp. Optional.

  Water, 1 liter.

• For the garlic sand:

  Deep fried garlic, 25g or 30g garlic and 30g shallot (干葱) if frying yourself. If you do not feel like deep frying yourself, you can also simply use 25g of deep fried garlic if you local Asian supermarket has it.

  Panko (preferably Chinese style), 25g.

  Chicken bouillon powder (鸡粉), 5g.

  Salt, ¼ tsp.

  Sugar, ¼ tsp.

  MSG (味精), ¼ tsp.

• For the crispy skin liquid:

  Maltose (麦芽糖) or golden syrup or cheap honey, ~15g. 1 part.

  Vinegar (白醋), ~45g. 3 parts. 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.

  Lemon juice, ~3g. Just a squeeze of lemon.

Process:

To prep:

The day before, make the marinade using 500g peeled garlic (or three heads of garlic, peeled), 100g soy sauce, 100g fish sauce, 45g salt, 15g chicken bouillon powder, an optional 1 tsp garlic powder, and 1 liter water. Marinate 20-30 chicken wings inside (flats are preferable here) for 60-90 minutes.

As the wings are marinating, mince 30g of garlic and 30g of shallot and deep fry until crispy. Combining the fried garlic/shallot with 25g panko, 5g chicken bouillon powder, ¼ tsp salt, ¼ tsp sugar, and ¼ tsp MSG. Keep at room temperature.

Make the crispy skin liquid by combining 15g maltose with 45g vinegar and a squeeze of lemon (~3g). Poach the wings until cooked through, rinse, and coat with the crispy skin liquid. Toss in the fridge.

Next day a bit before dinnertime, evaluate the wings. If they're a little on the wet side, finish them in front of the fan for an hour.

Cook according to one of the following three methods:

Option number one: Oil Ladling

To go this route, just toss four or five wings skin side down on a spider and lower them into 130 centigrade oil, keeping the flame at around medium low.

A minute later, flip, and dunk them in again for another minute. At this point, up your flame to high and with a target temperature of about 170, ladle the oil over the wings for about one minute.

Then flip the wings once again so that the skin side’s up – and continue ladling over the wings til the skin turns a nice dark golden brown, or about three minutes more.

Option number two: Shallow Frying

Note that with this method, if your oil temperature ends up getting a little too high, you will be at risk for some oil poppages… so be careful, don’t push it, and do keep a lid handy.

Fill up a non-stick pan with about two centimeters of oil and get that up to about 130.

With the flame on medium, toss the wings in skin side down, and fry those til the skin side gets nice and golden - about five minutes. Flip and fry for three minutes more.

Option number three: Oil and Bake

Dunk the wings in oil, and toss back onto your baking tray. Bake in a 230C oven for 12 minutes, with the convection fan on if you have one.

Option number four: Air Fryer

Dunk the wings in oil, then add to the air fryer. Bake at 205C (400F) for 11 minutes.

No matter which method you go with, serve on a bed of garlic sand. Sprinkle a little extra garlic sand on top.