Thai Fried Wings w/ Sweet & Sour Sauce

Thanks to some wonderful technical difficulties last weekend, this potential video is being turned into a Patreon post! I didn't want it to go to waste so below is this wonderful recipe. I had the pleasure of eating some amazing Thai fried wings when I visited Napa Valley a few weeks ago and immediately went looking for a way to recreate that experience. It doesn't need that many ingredients but they are a little specialty. Let's dive into it!

Grocery List:

For the Chicken:

1.5lbs Chicken wings

Fish Sauce (enough to marinate chicken)

3 tbsp Gogi Tempura Flour

6 tbsp rice flour

About 10 tbsp of water

1/4 tsp baking soda (make sure it's baking SODA and not powder lol)

1/4 tsp salt

For The Sauce:

1 cup pineapple juice

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/2 ketchup

1/2 cup rice vinegar

1 tbsp low sodium soy sauce

1 tbsp cornstarch

2 tbsp water

2-3 tbsp garlic chili sauce

First things first, we got to marinate our chicken. If you've never used fish sauce before, the best way to describe it is a funky soy sauce. I really mean funky. Don't try to skip out on this step and use regular soy sauce because the fish sauce gives it the important umami flavor. So hold your nose (it's definitely gonna stink after its done marinating) and pour it on. Use enough to coat all of your chicken. I put mine in a shallow glass casserole dish so all the chicken could be covered in the fish sauce without me having to dump tons of it on. Give the chicken about 30 minutes to marinate in this.

While the chicken marinates, we can make up our sauce. Simply combine all the ingredients (except for the cornstarch and the water) into a sauce pan over medium heat and whisk until everything is combined. I would mix everything together first, then taste before adding in the garlic chili sauce. I know I listed 2-3 tbsp, but you may be satisfied with the sweet and sour sauce as is, or if you're like me, you can spice it up by adding in the garlic chili sauce 1 spoonful at a time, whisk til it combines, taste and see if you need more. Once you've got the sauce to the right type of spice and taste, mix in a seperate small bowl the cornstarch and water. It should turn into a cloudy mixture that is our cornstarch slurry. This will be used to thicken up our sauce. Slowly whisk in that to the sauce pan and keep the heat on while it bubbles and thickens to your liking. Set aside with a lid on.

Once the 30 minutes are up. remove the chicken from the marinade. Pat as dry as you can. We'll then take the rice flour, gogi tempura flour, baking soda and salt and whisk them together. It's important to use those two types of flour vs. a regular AP flour because they give the wing that special crispiness and texture that you find in asian fried wings. Adding just a little bit of water at a time, whisk into the flour mixture until a batter is formed. The consistency should be similar to a cake batter. Maybe just a little more loose. I mixed my batter in a bowl big enough so that I could just put all of my chicken in at once, because you'll be going from here straight to the hot oil. Speaking of, the oil is sitting at just around 375 when I dropped these into my deep fryer. You could also just use a big pot of vegetable oil on the stove. I love the deep fryer because it regulates the oil temperature for me so I don't have to keep turning up and down the heat on the stove. The advantage though to the pot is that when you drop these in, they won't stick to anything. With the deep fryer, I lower the basket before I drop them in and sometimes they'll still drop and get stuck to the basket. You could alleviate this by holding the chicken wing partially in the oil for a few seconds before letting go, but this obviously comes with some risks of hot oil hitting your fingers. But who needs fingerprints anymore?

I think my wings took about 8-10 minutes to fully cook. I probed them with a meat thermometer and they were temping at about 185 which is great. Chicken wing are done at 175 but they can do all the way up to 200 and still be juicy. Get your wings out of the oil and onto a cooling rack for just a minute or two to allow the excess oil to drip off. I wouldn't put these directly onto a paper towel because the towel will create steam and start to soften up your hard earned crispy skin. After the wait, toss them in a bowl with the sauce and give them a good tossing. Set them on a plate and garnish with chopped basil and chopped green onions.

Enjoy this recipe and let me know how it went! If you have any questions or maybe I left a step out that you need more info about, feel free to comment! I'm back in the kitchen this weekend filming two videos and I certainly will make sure the tech issues of the past are gone!