chicken wings

White Cabbage and Chicken Soup

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White Cabbage and Chicken Soup

This is the classic chicken rice soup that is served whenever I order hainanese chicken rice. It is a very simple soup packed with flavour and it goes very well with chicken rice.

I am not making chicken rice tonight, just making the soup.

I am using Cameron highlands cabbage to flavour the soup as they taste better than those other types from China. It’s a preference thing. You can agree to disagree. I realized this when I was doing my usual marketing routine at the wet market (it seems only the wet market sells these types) and the uncle said “these are from Cameron Highlands..” and that was all that he would say before getting flustered with my questions.

I also realized wet market vegetable stall uncles and aunties tend to have very little friends. Oddly enough, it is supposed to be one of the best PR jobs in the world as you are serving customers everyday, day in day out. I guess it also depends on their MBTI profile. Some people get energized through interactions with people. Others become emotionally drained the moment they have to say “hello..”

But I cant blame them really. It’s not a profession that many would opt to do if they had a choice. I am sure most would have preferred a cushy nylon polyester swivel chair to twirl their day away.

If I had to spend a large part of my day talking to vegetables and haggle with uncles and aunties who are out to get a good deal – I would too become emotionally wretched. I guess some people are wired that way.

So newspaper wrapped cabbage good; unwrapped cabbage good for someone else.

For the chicken parts, I am using chicken wings as it is very easy to eat. Also there is more fats in the wing portion and would also add to the flavour for the soup. No need too many, just 5 small chicken wings would be suffice.

Recipe

Ingredients

5 Chicken Wings (they are usually offered in two sizes, big or small.. I usually take the small ones)
1 whole Cameron Highlands White Cabbage (this type is usually sold at wet markets and the vegetable seller will wrap them up in newspapers..)
See Salt – 1 tsp for 1.8 litres of water

Method

1. Boil a kettle of water (around 1.8 litres). Cut the cabbage into small bite size pieces. Place the prepared cabbage together with the frozen chicken wings in the pot, add sea salt and add the boiling hot water. Turn on high heat for 15 minutes with lid closed.

2. Place in thermal cooker and allow the magic to happen. Come back 12 hours later and boil again for dinner. Serve with spring onions garnishing if you like.

Bon Appetit!

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Cameron Highlands White Cabbage

Har Cheong Gai 虾酱鸡

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Har Cheong Gai 虾酱鸡

I am frying up some chicken wings for a social later and what better food item to bring than Shrimp Paste Chicken Wings. Kids love it, everyone I know loves it. I also know my friends would love my Roasted Pork Belly, but maybe leave that for another time.

Har Cheong Gai is basically chicken wings marinated in shrimp paste which gives it the fragrant shrimp paste flavour. It’s become quite popular at most zi char places in fact and my family would often order it when we have our meals out.

So I decided to make this delicious shrimp paste chicken for our friends’ gathering. Shrimp paste chicken is also know as har cheong gai in Cantonese or 虾酱鸡 in Mandarin. I am doing a quick and dirty version of it and basically shorten the cooking time as I am usually quite busy as a working parent.

In my recipe, I only allowed it to marinate for 15 minutes before I would fry up the whole batch of mid joint chicken wings. Just to experiment and see if the flavour is just as good.

Thankfully what turned out eventually was a nicely battered chicken wing with a light hint of shrimp paste and not salty at all like most zi char places. It was deliciously fragrant and tasted really yummy. Best part is, it wasn’t that difficult to do either.

However, since there was deep frying involved, and I didn’t like the idea of wasting too much oil, I opted for a smaller cooking pot instead. The compromise was that I could only fry in smaller batches, which took up a lot more time. Plus it made the kitchen really oily after all that heavy frying, and my wife didn’t like that. So I guess this is the first and last time I am making Har Cheong Gai. LOL.

Recipe

Ingredients

To marinate:
1 Kg Chicken Wings (mid joint wings only, about 27 pieces)
2 tbsp Shrimp Paste (I got mine from the Malay uncle stall at the wet market, but you may opt to use Lee Kum Kee Shrimp Sauce)
4 tbsp Hakka Rice Wine (you can substitute it with Hsiao Sing Hua Tiao Jiu)
2 tbsp Sesame Seed Oil
2 tbsp Oyster Sauce
2 tbsp Castor Sugar
1 tsp White Pepper Powder

Making the Batter:
3/4 cup Plain Flour
3/4 cup Potato Starch
2 Eggs
1 tsp Baking Soda
200 ml Water

Method

1. In a large mixing bowl, prepare the marinate by pouring in the shrimp paste, rice wine, sesame seed oil, oyster sauce, white pepper and sugar. Mix well.

2. Add the mid joint chicken wings into the mixture and make sure all the wings are coated. Allow it to marinate for 15 minutes.

3. Meanwhile prepare the Batter mix in another mixing bowl. Add the plain flour, potato starch, baking soda, eggs, water and give it a good mix until a smooth consistency.

4. Dip the marinated chicken wings into the batter (discard the remainder marinate) and then slowly dip them into the pot of boiling hot oil for deep frying. Fry for about 4 minutes each or until the chicken wing joints browns and  float on the surface of the oil bath.

5. Allow the chicken wings to cool on the rack before plating. You may serve it with lemon, vinegar and garlic chilli sauce.

Bon Appetit!

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Marinate the chicken wings for 15 minutes

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Prepare the Batter mixture

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Dip the chicken wings in the Batter before frying

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Rest the fried chicken wings in the cooling rack

Airfried Chicken Wings

 

Ho Sim Lang

Airfried Chicken Wings

Probably one of the best inventions of the 21st century, that is, the humble air fryer. It doesn’t fry air, don’t be mistaken. Instead it uses hot air to fry. Now we know when we say something’s full of hot air, it is usually quite useless, but that can’t be said of the air fryer.

This product is just one short of magical. Hot air it seems can be used to fry stuff, not just to fly stuff (think: hot air balloons). How does that work? Honestly I don’t know, I could guess how it works, but I don’t really care.

I am only interested to know how it fries my chicken wings to a beautiful crispy golden brown.

The air fryer that my wife bought was the smaller one of the two sizes offered by Philips. At first I thought, “what a cumbersome way to cook!?” but when I tried it, it worked like a charm. Beautiful to say the least.

So if you wanna try making chicken wings another way, then maybe the air fryer is for you.

Recipe

Ingredients

6 pcs Chicken Wings

Method

1. Place the chicken wings in a mixture of corn flour and shao xing hua tiao jiu and light soy sauce. This marinate can be prepared in a ziplock bag.

2. Once chicken wings are coated, place them in tray of air fryer. Turn on 8 minutes at 160 degrees. Then after that is done, turn over the wings and turn it on at 200 degrees for another 8 minutes. That should result in a crispy and nicely browned chicken wings.

Bon Appetit!!