Weezee Cooks: Tamarind Fried Chicken

Some years back on a late, cold January night, after I told the louts I worked with to go home, and re-cleaned a supposedly clean kitchen, my old Thai employers approached me in the wee hours of the morning: ‘Weezee,’ they said, ‘Our friends are coming here tonite- could you cook for us?’ It being 1 am, and me loving my job more than anything, I gave a jubilant, ‘Yes.’ Uncle told me what they wanted, and also told me to fry some chicken wings. Easy enough. Still, in my early years of cooking, I did a whole lot of doubting. I had no idea how to make good deep fried chicken wings, besides throw them in the fryer. That was more or less it. Uncle, on the other hand, showed me how he liked them. How he wanted the batter, and how he wanted them fried. Ever since, I’ve tenderly made them the same, unorthodox way. It was a good night. Late, but happy- and some Thai doctor, no matter how many times I said no, stuffed a 50 in my pocket for doing such a good job.

Some odd seven months ago, I went out to eat with my mother at a familiar Thai-Vietnamese restaurant and ordered tamarind chicken wings. A combination I had never, up until that late moment in culinary life, heard off. They were good: sweet, tangy, tart. I liked them a lot. So much so, I bet my mom I could make the same thing, maybe even better. And, as is my mother’s job to prevent her son’s ego from getting too big, she called my bluff. After that, we more or less forgot about the whole thing. That was, at least until last night, when I was bumming around one of three fridges and found a pack of chicken wings frozen and ready to ruin. But I say ruin with total temerity. Consider it a cool kind of valley speak, ‘ruin’ meaning: elevating to a level of pure radical. The trillest tamarind chicken wings in all the land. Here for me, and here for all of you. The ingredients are easy, the process a tad time consuming if you aren’t privileged enough to own a wok stove. But if you have the patience, you can, like my real uncle says, cook no problem.

Serves 3 (or 1 hungry bro)

Ingredients
12 chicken wings (y’know? The ones you get in club packs? They’re like 2 inches long)
¼ cup tamarind concentrate
¼ honey
1 clove of garlic (minced)
1 tablespoon of fish sauce
½ cup flour
1 teaspoon of pepper
1 teaspoon of chicken stock powder (I know, right?)

Enough vegetable oil and a wok to deep fry the suckers.

Lime and spring onion to garnish.

Directions

Generally, I like to fill a wok with oil and keep it on low heat so I won’t have to wait as long later to make it hot enough to fry in; when I’m closer to cooking, I change the temperature to medium high heat. Anyway, I reckon if I’m doing stuff in the meantime, I may as well be productive. Chicken wing woking takes a lot of timing and speed, after all. Also, I like to let my chicken wings sit out and reach room temperature. This ensures even cooking when fried.

Mix the dry ingredients together. Take your wings and throw them in. If they’re a little wet, even better. What makes uncle’s batter so phenomenal is that it’s tacky, doughy, and gummy. No dusting wings in flour here. That said, take your chicken wings, and mix them as much as you can in the flour. Be tough, try and get the flour wet from the wings. If the wings are covered and not sticky, but dusted, you’re missing the mark. That said, you can just dust them too. You’ll just have a lighter batter. But a good, tacky batter- not a wet one used for fixings like tempura or onion wings- enables the sauce to stick to the wings even more effectively.

After a thorough mashing, put the wings aside.

In a bowl, mix the garlic, honey, tamarind concentrate, and fish sauce. Easy peasy. Set it aside.

Check the wok’s temperature (or whatever pot you care to deep fry in- just so long as the wings are completely submerged). If you have a candy thermometer, even better. If not, just drop a piece of gummy batter in and see if it floats to the surface. If it does, you’re ready. But before that, make sure you have somewhere to set the cooked wings. I like paper towel over a wire rack. Next, gently place the wings in the oil. Don’t crowd whatever pot for the sake of not cooling the oil too much. Fry 'em. 


Wings will usually sink to the bottom and anchor up. When they’re closer to being finished, they’ll puff up and float a little. To be on the safe side, let them fry another 30 seconds after that, making sure they reach a deep golden brown. Use a spider or slotted spoon to move them around and fish them out of the hot oil. Place them on the paper towel and cook the rest.

Unless you have a second wok, this next part can be tricky. When all the wings are done cooking, drain the wok of all oil into a pot- I don’t care where you get it- but move fast. Wash the wok, and thoroughly dry it. Unfortunately, none of us have the luxury of a wok stove with a hose overhead, and a wirey brush we can use to quickly rinse it with (those were my salad days).

When it’s clean, put it back on the heat and heat it to the highest setting. Conventional stoves don’t even begin to match the heat of the wok, so you never have to worry about burning a thing. What you do have to worry about is losing all that heat quickly; that’s why it’s important to stir-fry quickly and have everything at hand. If you don’t have a wok, you can just as easily use a pan.

To test the wok’s sizzle, drop a bit of the sauce in the pan. If it sizzles furiously and you’re afraid it’s too hot and will burn and evaporate and become gummy fast, you’re ready. Drop all the sauce in, immediately after that, all the chicken wings. Coat whatever way you can. Toss the wok, flip with a slotted spoon, just coat those things and let them caramelize. If you can char them, congratulations: you have one hot wok. This step takes you no more than a minute. If you want a wet sauce, use less wok time. If a dryer sauce, more.

Plate, garnish with a lime wedge and slivered green onions, and enjoy. Sweet, salty, tart. Fantastic. Who needs any Ben Thanh?  

Love,

Weezee

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