Thai Chicken Wings
Who doesn’t love a chicken wing? I’d never really had them until I spent a summer in Chicago visiting my great friend Courtney. Unusually for me, I can’t remember the exact location we had these first, but I’d like to think it was either going to a Cubs game or at Uncle Julios, a restaurant that introduced me to Mexican food and margarita swirls. Anyway, I was hooked on Buffalo wings and blue cheese dip.
Now, these are nothing like those Buffalo wings but they’re one of my new favourites.
I can’t claim the recipe as my own, I’ve just modified it to work on the Big Green Egg. The recipe is from the excellent book Wings and Things, it’s their Ko Phan Bang recipe.
Cooking surfaces
then
BBQ Temperature
Ingredients
For the sauce
- 1 stalk lemongrass
- 3 kaffir lime leave, julienned
- 3 tbsp dark soy sauce
- 300ml Sriracha sauce, I’ve reduced this from the official recipe
- 2 tsp sessame il
- 100ml white win vinegar
- 200g runny honey
- 150g soft brown sugar
- Juice of 2 limes
For the wings
- 1 pack chicken wings (about 1kg)
- 2 tsp onion granules
- 2 tsb white pepper
- 1 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
- 150ml butter milk
- 250g corn flour
- 50g rice flour
- Vegetable oil to deep fry in
To serve
- Japanese mayonnaise
- 2 tbsp fresh ginger, finely chopped
- Fresh coriander
- Sesame seeds
Equipment
- The Big Green Egg Wok and Eggspander basket are needed here
Method
To marinate the chicken
- Mix the onion salt, white and black pepper and the buttermilk in a large bowl.
- Add the chicken wings (cut into the wing and the drum) and coat with the buttermilk mix.
- Pop in the fridge for a few hours to tenderise the chicken.
To prepare the sauce
- Bruise the lemongrass with the back of a knife and pop it into a small saucepan.
- Add the kafir lime leaves, soy sauce, sriracha, sesame oil, vinegar, honey, lime juice and sugar, basically all the sauce ingredients.
- Cook on a low heat for at least an hour to allow the lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves to infuse.
- Strain the sauce.
To prepare the spring wings and cook
- Into a large bowl, add your cornflour and rice flour. Mix thoroughly.
- Now take each piece of chicken and coat in the flour mixture. Repeat this for each piece of chicken.
- Setup your Egg with the EGGspander basket and wok. You’ll need to run your Egg at a lower temperature than the 180°C you need the oil to be as the bottom of the wok will be very close to the charcoal. About 140°C on the EGG thermometer should give you an oil temp in the wok of 180°C.
- Add your vegetable oil to the wok to a depth where it will just cover your chicken drums.
- In batches of 5 or 6 pieces cook your chicken wings for about 6-8 minutes. You need them to be 74°C or hotter. Test them by probing them with your Thermapen.
- Once you have cooked all the wings, add them and enough sauce to coat them to a bowl. Stir to coat them thoroughly.
- Serve onto a plate and top with ginger, coriander, sesame seeds and some mayonnaise.
Enyoy, these are some of the finest wings I have tried.