[Recipe] Coca-Cola Chicken Wings

Coca Cola Chicken Wings

If you love to drink Coke, you may not know that Coke is also great when used to cook meat.
Coca Cola or any sweetened carbonated drinks help to tenderize the meat and also creates a caramelized gravy on the meat after its water content has evaporated during the cooking process.
Here is a simple recipe that you can try next time.

Ingredients

• 10 pieces of Chicken mid-joints, can be replaced with similar quantity of chicken cubes if you prefer.
• 1 teaspoon of Five Spice Powder (五香粉）
• 2 teaspoon of Light Soya Sauce
• 1 teaspoon of Chinese Cooking Wine eg. Hua Diao Jiu (花雕酒）
• 2 slices of Old Ginger
• 1 teaspoon of Sugar
• Half a can of non-diet Coca cola (you can also replace it with sweet carbonated drink, eg. Pepsi or 7-up).

Method

1. Marinate the chicken with ingredients 2-6 in a bowl for about 20 minutes. You may add in a dash of cola as well into the marinate mix.
2. Preheat a pan on low flame till its hot. Test it by spraying some drops of water on the pan, if the droplets swing around, the pan is ready.
3. If you like, pan fry some ginger, garlic and shallots to give the wok a fragrance.
4. Add in the chicken wings with the skin side down first. This comes the tricky part – adding in the chicken into the hot pan. This will cause the oil in the pan to splatter and it might hurts if the drops of oil lands on your skin. It also means lots of cleaning up around the stove too. Therefore, I encourage you to try not to use any oil as meat itself can cook in its own oil. If you use oil for your pan frying, you can sprinkle some salt into the oil prior to adding the chicken as the sale can help to minimize the splattering oil. Otherwise, use a splatter screen or pan cover to stop the oil from splattering out of the pan. Or you can totally forgo the oil by spraying the heated pan with some water and using water to prevent the chicken from sticking to the pan. This water method involves careful monitoring because when the water dries up from the heat, the chicken will start sticking to the pan. Hence, you need to add in more water bit by bit (eg. one teaspoon at one time).
5. Remember to flip the chicken pieces regularly, otherwise you might burn one side of the chicken. Once the chicken starts to brown, pour in the coca cola and any remaining marinate left in the bowl.
6. Start with a high flame for 5 minutes, then medium flame for another 5 minutes.
7. Then finally, let the chicken and cola simmer (ie. on a low flame) till the water contents in the cola evaporates, leaving behind a thick caramel gravy.
8. Arrange the chicken pieces on a serving plate lined with a lettuce leaf. If not picky about presentation, you can pour the remaining gravy over the chicken pieces for extra flavour.
9. You may sprinkle some sesame oil at this point for a nicer fragrance.