In The Kitchen: SPICY GARLIC CHICKEN WINGS

The Hubs and I use to live in San Francisco and there's this restaurant called San Tung.  It's soooooooooooooo good they always have lines a mile long outside.  They have these insanely delicious deep fried chicken wings coated in this spicy, garlicky sweet sauce.

Now I love chicken wings.. but I absolutely hate frying/deep frying at home.  The house smells gross afterwards and the walls are all sticky and gross!  Bleh!

So this is my recipe for oven fried wings!  

Ingredients:

3lb. chicken wings
corn starch
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup honey
1 large tbsp minced garlic
2 tsp minced ginger
1 tsp sesame oil
2 tbsp garlic chili paste (less or more depending on how spicy you like it)
2 tsp sugar
salt and pepper to taste
cooking/baking spray
sesame seeds or green onions (optional this is purely for presentation. I didn't have those things on hand but if you do you should use them it makes it look so much prettier :)

Pre-Heat Oven to 450 degrees F

Bring a pot of water to boil with 1 tbsp of salt

Wash your chicken

You're going to par-boil your chicken wings for 10 min. 

I know this basically goes against everything you've ever learned about cooking chicken but I promise this makes all the difference in the world!

This will help take out the moisture/fat from the chicken skin so it can "crisp" up nicely in the oven later.  This also ensures that your chicken is cooked on the inside (something I'm always afraid of!!). Often times whenever I cook chicken directly in the oven I find that the inside is pink and the outside skin is burned!

While your chicken is par-boiling you can make your chicken dredge.  Put your cornstarch in a plastic sandwich baggy with salt and combine.

Yikes!! 

 Look at all the oil!

Take your chicken out at around the 10 min. mark

Allow chicken to cool and then pat dry with paper towels (extremely important as this pulls moisture out of the chicken for crispy chicken later on)

Once your chicken is "dried" you can put them in the dredge you made earlier and toss chicken with an even coating.

Line your baking pan with aluminum foil and spray with cooking/baking spray

Line your chicken wings in the pan and bake for 30 min.

After 30 min take your chicken out, flip and return to the oven for another 10 to 15 min.

After you've flipped your chicken for it's last 10-15 min in the oven you can begin your sauce.

Combine the garlic, ginger, soy sauce, honey, sesame oil and garlic chili paste. 

Simmer and add your sugar.

1 tsp cornstarch to thicken sauce 

(use NEW cornstarch.. don't use the cornstarch you used to dredge the chicken in.. don't want to cross contaminate!!!)

Combine until the cornstarch is evenly dissolved and add into your sauce. 

You'll have to act fast because once you add the cornstarch and allow the sauce to cool it will turn EXTREMELY thick almost like black tar!

Take your chicken out of the oven.

Use tongs and put your chicken in the sauce.

Evenly coat your chicken wings in the sauce!

Repeat until you've coated all of the chicken wings and you're done!

They're so good!!  

Crispy, crunchy, spicy, salty and sweet!! 

They take some extra effort but they're so delicious! 

Now you can obviously use any sauce you want with the oven fried chicken wings Buffalo, Honey, BBQ - the sky's the limit :)

Enjoy!