Memory
My parents are both great at cooking, maybe that’s the reason I started loving cooking and experimenting with ingredients ever since elementary school.
My dad usually cooks Monday to Friday dinner – he arrives home at 6PM from work, and he always just need 1 hour, exactly 1 hour, to clean up ingredients and turns them into delicious dishes. Right at 7PM, my mom will arrive home and 4-5 dishes just miraculously appear on dinner table.
My mom usually cooks for the weekends and family, friends gathering occasions. I could not say those are “party” because they were not as “fun” from my perspective as a kid back then. Almost at EVERY gathering, my mom will cook honey-glazed soy sauce chicken wings. I don’t know whether she cooks them every time because her daughter LOVES the wings or because that’s a representative dish. I still remember how I bargained with her how many wings I can eat those nights, 8 wings or 10 wings?
Today, I want to share the super simple recipe my mom cooks these wings. I don’t think I will ever make as delicious wings as my mom, even I know all the ingredients for marinating and steps for cooking. My mom’s wings are just superior in color – that shiny brown, in texture – as soon as my teeth sink in the skin, it’s like landing on… I could not describe how juicy, bouncy the meat is, which requires the right temperature and duration to cook the wings.
Quick Takeaways:
- Do not marinate wings with soy sauce as it might burn the wing skins.
- Do not poke wings when marinating, could lose the juicy part.
- Cover pan with lid at first also to preserve moist.
- Wings are cooked when meat shrinks and bones show.
- Cut choy sum into smaller pieces for shorter chewing time and softer texture.
RECIPE
Now let’s get started!
- Marinate 1hr minimum or overnight
- Salt. That’s it.
- Do not marinate with soy sauce. Once pan fry wings, soy sauce could quickly turn wing skins to burnt.
- Do not need to poke holes, which could potentially affect how juicy the wings will be.
- Salt. That’s it.
- Medium-low heat, add some oil (not too much as wing skin also produces chicken wings)
- Add chicken wings, cover with lid to keep the moist and not to burn.
- Flip when one side is turning golden, keep the lid on.
- Add soy sauce, a little oyster sauce (if you added lots of salt when marinating, do NOT add oyster sauce)
- Open the lid, keep flipping wings till both sides are brown, and the soy sauce is absorbed.
- How to tell if chicken wings are cooked?
- When the two ends of wings show more bone, it means the meat is cooked because it shrinks. Same for other meat with bones such as beef/pork short ribs. If meat shrinks, it’s cooked.
- When wings are cooked, turn off heat.
- Brush THIN layer of honey on one side, flip wings to have both sides cover in honey.
- Too much honey could taste weird. So a thin layer will do!
- SERVE!
Stir fried Chopped Choy Sum
I am the chef for a house of 4 people during quarantine and I want to supply us enough veggie every day. Besides chicken wings, I decided to use Choy Sum.
But I do not really like chewing a whole choy sum. It takes a long time (for me) to chew all those fibers on stem, and teeth power for someone who had braces on before.
To decrease chewing time and texture, I chopped choy sum into small pieces – lay choy sum perpendicular to knife and cut. Now smaller pieces of choy sum are easier to chew and have softer texture.
