How to make Authentic Chinese Style Salt and Pepper Chicken Wings – Secret Recipe!

Salt and Pepper Chicken Wings is one of those dishes that people tend to order when they’re buying food from the Chinese takeaway – there’s something super tasty about the combination of salt, pepper, chilli on a crispy, deep fried wing.  Way better than KFC.

I’ve realised that not everyone likes eating meat on the bone.  I’m the opposite.  I can’t bear the boneless box from KFC, or Popcorn chicken, or Chicken Strips. It doesn’t taste of anything!

Being Chinese, nearly all the meat we ate was on the bone – it’s fiddly, but it has way more flavour and it’s cheaper to buy than Chicken breasts.  Have you seen the price of Chicken breasts?! No wonder Tesco have started security tagging theirs.

Anyway, onwards.  Chicken wings are cheap to buy from any supermarket, and you won’t mind the fiddly-ness of the bones because this recipe makes them so, so, so tasty.

My mothers Salt and Pepper Chicken Wings.  You start with a pack of chicken wings.  You don’t need a huge pack – there’s about 12 in here.

(These photos were taken under VERY low light conditions with no flash.  Excuse any the grainy effect).

Apart from Chicken Wings, you need salt, white pepper, sesame oil, eggs, sliced garlic, spring onion, chilli, 1/2 a chopped white onion:

Start with making sure the wings are clean (washed) without any hairs.  Chop each chicken wing at the joint:

Now you have double the quantity! See why this goes so far?

Put your chicken in a bowl and add liberal amounts of salt, white pepper and a tablespoon of sesame oil. Exact quantities? It’s hard to day.  I would say for this quantity, there as a good sprinkling of salt and pepper, about a tablespoon of pepper and half a tablespoon of white pepper.  Adapt accordingly – I love salt, I could swim in salt so I’d add more.

Then we add around 2 tablespoons of corn flour and one egg.

Mix together with your hand! Really make sure everything is well mixed in together.  If yours feels powdery then add another egg.

Now are you ready for the salt and pepper wings secret? This will make your wings have a really gorgeous crispy coating (it won’t taste sweet or weird).

Instant Custard Powder! Classy birds that we are, we used Morrisons Value Instant Custard Powder – any brand will do. We used half of this, so around 35g of this stuff added to the chicken:

When everything is well mixed together it should look like this – the batter is somewhat slimy and looks yellow:

Next we have to fry the wings. So if you have a deep fat fryer then you just have to put it in there, following the instructions. Otherwise you have to do it the old fashioned way in a pan. I don’t know about you but I remember seeing a film at school about the danger of chip pan fires which scared the life out of me (although, WHY would you ever pour water on hot oil?) – so I’ve always been nervous deep frying things this way!

Anyway – hot oil in a wok – not too much, not too little. Drop your first wing in and make sure it’s hot enough – it should sizzle:

Fry the rest of the wings. Let it cook on a gradual heat – about 10 minutes – so that its evenly cooked inside and out. It should look like this:

When they’re done they should look like this. Place on a kitchen towel to soak up the excess oil.

We’re nearly there!

Remember the garlic, onions, spring onion and chilli from earlier? Now it’s time to fry them.

Go back to your wok, minus most of the oil and start to fry the ingredients:

Get the onion cooked through so they are nice and soft but not brown.  Add the chicken pieces and get it all mixed up and heated through.  Sprinkle the spring onion and let it fry for a few minutes only.

Now serve!

This is how it should look.  It shouldn’t require any additional seasoning and it is very tasty and very moreish.

I had a great reaction on twitter when I tweeted a photo of these – so hopefully you will enjoy them! Let me know if you give them a go.