Chicken Wing in Honeyed Char Siew Sauce (密糖叉烧汁鸡翼)

“Simply easy, simple savoury“

One of my readers was asking for a recipe of 密汁鸡 (Pronounciation in Mandarin as “Mi Zhi Ji”) in my FB Fanclub. Without her further elaboration on the dish title, I assumed she wanted the honeyed chicken. However, I had an urge of making the honey char siew flavour version instead, last weekend. So, I cooked this for this time, and I promised to cook the other honey chicken next time, ok (smile)?

Well, it’s still worth cooking this recipe even if it’s not the desired recipe as it was so delicious! For the sake of the appetite of your kids, cook this, anyway. They will certainly love the sweet savoury taste!

Ingredients
8 pieces of 3-joint chicken wing, or just the mid joint part

Seasoning:
1 teaspoon of ground white pepper
1 – 2 tablespoons of honey
2 tablespoons of oyster sauce
1 tablespoon of dark soy sauce (thick soy sauce)
5 tablespoons of sugar (adjust amount of sugar by 1 tablespoon more or less depends on your desired sweetness)
2 teaspoons of light soy sauce
1 teaspoon of Hua Diao Rice Wine
1 teaspoon of sesame oil
½ teaspoon of grounded Zedoary, or in 2 small pieces (lightly mashed) (Chinese translation: 沙姜)
(Or, replace with 1-2 teaspoon of ginger juice.)

Method
Use Stove-cooking:
1) Rinse chicken wings. Place them in a large bowl. Combine well with all seasoning ingredients. Dredge every wing with the seasoning mixture, and marinate for at least 2 hours. Or, do it the night before for overnight marinating (But reduce 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce for overnight marinating to avoid over-briny taste).

2) Preheat a large saucepan over medium fire, place wings into the hot frying pan, but do not over crowd the pan. Keep remaining sauce in the bowl for later.

3) Sauté wings for 10 minutes each side, or until all sides are caramelized (glazed) and well sautéed. Remove from pan and arrange on a serving dish.

4) Put remaining sauce into the pan, and bring to a boil. Pour the sauce over the roasted wings. Serve.

However, sauté on frying pan might be difficult to achieve even roasting on whole joint wing, unless you don’t really mind its appearance. Or, use only the mid joint part. Otherwise, you may consider the oven baking method instead.

Use Oven-baking:
1) Preheat oven to 230°C. Line baking dish with aluminum foil, and place wings on it.

2) Place baking dish at the high rack of the preheated oven, and bake wings for 8 – 10 minutes.

3) Then, do a check on the doneness on its surface. You might need to turn the wings over to bake for another 5 minutes or until caramelized, in order to get even baking on both sides.

4) Remove from oven. Thinly slice when strips are cooled. Serve with the sauce.

Note: For oven baking method – If you prefer more glazing on the surface of the wings, you may want to separate the addition of honey to the seasoning, and brush honey on one side of the wings only after abt 8 minutes bake. Bake for another 2 – 3 minutes, after brushing the honey. Flip over the wings and bake for 3 minutes before brushing honey on it and continue baking for another 2 minutes before heat off. This is also to avoid the wings from burning in case you do not have time to check on the baking constantly.

Well, I could think if another good way to do this dish. The simplest and fun way..

For Barbeque:
Char it with direct charcoled fire during your barbeque party, simply roast it till browned and done. That’s just so simple and delicious that way!

This honeyed Char Siew sauce chicken wing yields 220kcal.

Tips: Get Zedoary (沙姜) from Traditional Chinese medical hall. Buy it either in grounded form or in small pieces, depends on availability. Both are good to be used.