Cantonese Swiss Chicken Wings (瑞士鸡翼) | Chinese Cooking Demystified

Swiss wings! A great dish that...obviously have nothing to do with Switzerland :) These are some wings braised with stock and soy sauce, and why the name is the way it is... is ultimately lost to history.

These days, they've become a real home cooking classing in Guangdong. We were aiming for a similar flavor that you'd find at the Tai Ping Koon restaurant, so we did go a different route than you'd generally see in many recipes. For another way of cooking them, do check out Wantanmien's recipe, which I'll link below.

No Reddit recipe, sorry :/ I'm feeling lazy again (these videos are taking longer and longer to edit, and a description box recipe takes ~1 hour to pound out vs half day for a Reddit recipe).

Because most of you will likely be using your own homemade roast chicken stock or a bit of box stock, I'll put the Swiss wings recipe first, and the Tai Ping Koon-style stock here second:

INGREDIENTS, SWISS WINGS:

* Stock, preferably roasted stock or the Tai Ping Koon stock below, 750mL

* Spices for the stock: 1/2 cinnamon stick (桂皮), 2 star anise (八角), 4 dried bay leaves (香叶), 1 Chinese black cardamom a.k.a. Tsaoko (草果). Skip the Chinese black cardamom if you can't find it.

* To make the swiss sauce: 6 tbsp light soy sauce (生抽), 6 tbsp dark soy sauce (老抽), 6 tbsp Taiwan thick soy sauce a.k.a. soy paste (油膏) -or- an additional 6 tbsp light soy, 100g slab sugar a.k.a. jaggery (红糖) -or- dark brown sugar.

* Ten chicken wings, or however many you feel like, really.

PROCESS, SWISS WINGS

(Note: this process of separately adding spices and reducing the stock is sort of our own personal approach to allow for ease between switching between using box stock and homemade. Other recipes would not call for a similar step)

1. Add the stock to a saucepan together with the spices. Over a medium flame, get it to a heavy simmer/light boil. Let it reduce, ~20-30 minutes.

2. While the stock is reducing, blanch the chicken wings in boiling water for ~2 minutes. Then rinse under cool water, and transfer to an ice bath. Let the wings soak for at least five minutes. Note that if you don't care about making your wings more plump, you can skip the ice bath.

3. Back to the stock. Remove the spices - there should be about ~375mL of stock remaining. Add in the soy sauces and the sugar. Bring to a boil and let the sugar dissolve.

4. Add the chicken wings to the boiling water. Let them boil in there for ~1 minute. Shut off the heat and cover.

5. Let the wings soak in the hot water - covered - for at least one hour, flipping halfway through. If you are soaking for longer than an hour or so (especially overnight), after flipping bring everything up to a boil again for one minute once again, and be sure to cover. This is for safety purposes.

6. After soaking, transfer the wings together with ~1/4 cup of sauce to a non-stick skillet. Cook over a medium flame for ~5 minutes, or until the sauce reduces into a syrupy consistency.

The remainder of your sauce should be saved and either fridge'd or frozen depending on how soon you want to use it again. Think of this as sort of like a Lo Shui master stock that you can be a bit rougher with.

You can also make a larger batch of wings - they reheat very well.

INGREDIENTS, TAI PING KOON-STYLE STOCK

Note that there ended up being some educated guesswork here. The broad strokes of it should be correct, however.

* Meat for the stock: 1/2 chicken, ~500g, preferably old hen; 500g pork bones with a bit of meat still attached (猪脊骨), 250g chicken feet

* Vegetables: 1/2 onion (洋葱), 1 carrot (胡萝卜), ~1.5 inches ginger (姜), 1 small bunch Chinese celery (芹菜) -or- ~1 stalk western celery (西芹)

* Liaojiu a.k.a. Shaoxing wine (料酒/绍兴) -or- wine, 1/4 cup.

PROCESS, TAI PING KOON-STYLE STOCK

1. Fry the meat pieces for 5-6 minutes over a high flame until browned. Think of this as akin to a sear. You will probably need to work in batches. Remove and reserve.

2. Medium flame. Fry the onion for ~1 minute, followed by the carrot for ~1 minute, and finally add in the celery and ginger and fry for a minute more.

3. Swirl in the Shaoxing wine and deglaze like you would in the Western manner, scraping up the fond.

4. Add back in the meat pieces and cover everything up with water. Bring it up to a boil, then down to a simmer, and cook for ~8 hours. (if leaving uncovered you will need to periodically add more water in)

5. Remove the meat pieces and carrot, reserve for another use. Strain the stock, transfer to the fridge.

6. Next day (or before using), skim off the layer of fat at the top.

For reference, Wantanmien's recipe is here for comparison purposes: https://youtu.be/JYkkVvuG4TI

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Outro Music: คิดถึงคุณจัง by ธานินทร์ อินทรเทพ
Found via My Analog Journal (great channel): https://youtu.be/GHaL5H-VYRg
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