Pok Pok Wings Recipe – the start of chicken wings week!

Pok Pok Wings Recipe

By Irvin Lin

These tiny wings pack a punch of salty, sweet, umami and spicy all into one little bite. The secret is the fish sauce. You can get fish sauce in Asian grocery stores. While you’re there, be sure to pick up a jar of Naam Phrik Phao (roasted chile paste) or some dried Thai Chilis to make your own Naam Phrik Phao (a recipe is also included below) as well as some rice flour. Asian rice flour tends to be ground finer than the ones you can get at the regular grocery store. If you can’t get finely ground rice flour, just use cornstarch in its place. Finally, keep in mind that you need to marinate these chicken wings overnight so take that into account if you plan on serving them.

Recipe adapted from the Pok Pok cookbook by Andy Ricker and Serious Eats

Ingredients
8 medium cloves of garlic
2 1/2 teaspoon sea salt, divided
1/4 cup warm water
1/2 cup fish sauce
1/2 cup granulate white sugar
2 lbs chicken wings, broken into drumettes and flats if necessary
3/4 cup super finely ground rice flour (not glutinous rice), divided
1 teaspoon baking powder, divided
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cold water
1/2 cup vodka
2 teaspoons Naam Phrik Phao, divided (roasted chile paste, store bought or homemade – recipe below)
Oil for frying

Directions
1. Press the garlic through a garlic press into a small bowl, or finely mince the garlic and place it in a small bowl. Sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon of salt over it and then add the warm water to the bowl and stir. Let sit for 5 minutes. Pour the garlic and juice through a fine sieve, stirring and mashing the garlic to extract as much liquid as possible into a glass liquid measuring cup, reserving the solid garlic in the original small bowl, covered with plastic wrap in the refrigerator. Stir the fish sauce and the sugar into measuring cup, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. You should have 1 cup but if you don’t add enough water to reach 1 cup.

2. Place the chicken wings pieces in a 9 x 13 glass baking pan. Pour 1/2 cup of the fish sauce marinade over the wings, reserving the remaining 1/2 cup in the measuring cup. Cover the measuring cup with plastic wrap and refrigerate. Cover the baking pan with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight (turning the chicken every couple of hours if you can).

3. Once the chicken wings are done marinating, place a wire rack on a rimmed baking sheet. Place 1 teaspoon salt, 1/4 cup rice flour and 1/2 teaspoon baking powder in medium bowl. Using a balloon whisk, stir the dry ingredients together until well blended. Take the chicken wings out, one at a time, and use a paper towel to dry it off. Place the dry wing in the rice flour mixture and coat. Place on the wire rack and repeat with the remaining chicken wings, using fresh paper towels when necessary. Let sit to dry on the rack.

4. As the wings dry on the rack, place 1/2 cup of oil in a small pot and heat up on high. Line a heat-proof bowl with a paper towel. Drop a little bit of the reserved garlic in the oil. If it bubbles immediately add the remaining garlic, but if it doesn’t, wait a bit and add another bit of garlic, repeating until it does. Fry the garlic in the oil until it turns golden brown. Once done, scoop out the garlic with a fine mesh sieve strainer and dump the garlic into the paper towel lined bowl. Reserve the oil in the pot for another use (it’s great for stir fry, using for roasting vegetables or garlic infused salad dressing).

5. Add enough oil (I use rice bran or peanut but you can use whatever you feel comfortable with) to a heavy Dutch oven so it’s about 1” deep. Heat the oven to 350˚F. Place the remaining 1/2 cup rice flour, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, all-purpose flour and salt in a large bowl. Using a balloon whisk, stir the dry ingredients together until well blended. Add water and vodka to the bowl and whisk until you get a smooth thin batter. The batter should have the constancy of half and half, just barely thick enough to coat a chicken wing but still see the chicken wing skin underneath. Dip a chicken wing into the batter, and see if it’s thin enough. If it isn’t, add a tablespoon of water at a time until it is.

6. Place a clean wire rack over a rimmed baking sheet lined with paper towels. Once the oil is heated up, dip and coat 1/2 of the chicken wings (I used chopsticks because I’m Asian like that) and fry in the oil for 8 minutes or until golden brown. Use a fine mesh spoon, spider spoon or tongs agitate the and stir the chicken wings, flipping them now and then to make sure they fry up evenly. Once cooked, move the wings to the fresh wire rack and repeat with the remaining raw wings.

7. Once all the wings are fried, take the reserved fish sauce (not the one used to marinate the chicken, the one still in the measuring cup!) and pour half of it (1/4 cup) into a wok or a large sauté pan. Add 1 teaspoon of Naam Phrik Phao and turn the heat to high. Cook the sauce for about 30-45 seconds until it has reduced and thickened to half. Add half the chicken wings and toss with the sauce until it starts to cling to the chicken, about 30 seconds more. Sprinkle half the fried garlic over the chicken wings and toss for about 30 seconds more, or until the wings start to darken a bit. Remove from the wok and place back on the wire rack. Repeat with the other half of the chicken. Serve immediately.

Makes about 12-16 medium sized wings, enough for 4 to 6 people as appetizers.