Cook the Book: Sweet and Sour Vietnamese Wings
In today's Cook the Book recipe, sweet and sour Vietnamese wings, chicken wings are marinated in an Asian all-stars concoction of fish sauce, mango nectar, ginger, lime juice, and lemongrass, before being oven-roasted to mahogany stickiness.
The recipe makes 24 wings, which will serve 4 as an entrée, or, depending on the size of your game day spread, up to 12 as an appetizer.
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Sweet and Sour Vietnamese Wings
- makes 24 wings -
Adapted from The Great Wings Book by Hugh Carpenter & Teri Sandison
Ingredients
24 chicken wings
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup Vietnamese or Thai fish sauce
1/2 cup mango, guava, or papaya nectar
2 tablespoons Asian chili sauce
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup chopped cilantro sprigs
1/4 cup minced ginger
1/4 cup minced lemongrass, stem only
1/4 cup roasted, unsalted peanuts
4 cups shredded iceberg lettuce
Procedure
1. Cut off the wing tips and save them for making stock. In a bowl large enough to hold the wings, combine the lime juice, brown sugar, fish sauce, mango nectar, chile sauce, garlic, cilantro, ginger, lemongrass, and peanuts. Add the wings, and mix thoroughly. Marinate the wings in the refrigerator for 1 to 24 hours (the longer the better).
2. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a shallow baking pan with foil. Coat a wire rack with nonstick cooking spray and place the rack in the baking pan.
3. Drain the chicken and reserve the marinade. Arrange the wings on the rack (smooth surface down) and roast for 30 minutes. Drain the accumulated liquid from the pan. Baste the wings with the reserved marinade, turn them over, and baste again. Roast until the wings turn a mahogany color, about another 30 minutes.
4. Place a layer of lettuce on a platter. Add the wings on top of the lettuce, and serve.
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7 Comments:
I just happen to have a mess of wings in my freezer waiting for a recipe like this. Thanks!
onalark at 3:20PM on 01/19/09
Is it really a good idea to baste the wings with a marinade that held raw chicken? Sounds like an accident waiting to happen don't you think?
ohmygod at 4:50PM on 01/19/09
@ohmygod - The wings are cooked for a further 30 minutes after basting, so any raw chicken juice left in the marinade would be cooked through and through.
Michele Humes at 4:52PM on 01/19/09
Sounds great, but I'd love to be able to make these without having to buy mango/guava/papaya nectar. Anyone have any substitute suggestions? I'm guessing a citrus fruit would be too acidic? What about apple puree?
LondonM at 6:29AM on 01/20/09
@LondonM - orange juice would certainly change the intended flavor, but I don't think it would be too acidic to taste good. You could just do orange juice and skip the lime...or you could buy some peach/apricot nectar. Surely you'd drink that?
Michele Humes at 11:24AM on 01/20/09
@LondonM - Libby's sells individual soda-can sized cans of nectar and cost ~$1 in the juice aisle of supermarket
kw12345 at 1:35PM on 01/20/09
@Michele Humes
@kw12345
My fault, I wasn't clear enough -- I'm not opposed to buying/drinking the nectar, and the recipe sounds delicious as is. It's just that I was trying to think if I could replicate the flavor (more or less) with something I already had. I was wondering if anyone else had the same thought .. :)
Thanks for your suggestions!
-m
LondonM at 11:34AM on 01/21/09