Asian-style "Buffalo Wings"

I will always remember the buffalo wings I used to have back in Singapore at Jerry's BBQ located at Jalan Kayu many years ago. The wings had a crispy batter and a shiny deep red coating of sweet, tangy and spicy sauce. It was almost reminiscent of chinese sweet and sour pork. Hence, we used to refer to them as "Gu Lao Wings".

The kids love to eat chicken, and they love ketchup. Well, Buffalo wings is kind of ketchupy, so I thought it would be a good idea to make some "mock" Buffalo wings for dinner last night. I didn't have any hot sauce in the pantry, so I came up with my own version instead.

After doing some research on the internet, I came across a recipe by Alton Brown which I found interesting because instead of deep-frying the wings, he steams them first, then puts them in the oven to roast, and it claims that the wings comes out crispy. Wow, no-deep-fry-crispy-chicken-wings! I had to give it a go.

I followed the recipe, except that when it came to the roasting part, I dipped the wings in some melted butter before putting them in the oven. I thought it might give them a little boost for some extra crunch. Well, the recipe didn't really work for me. Next time, I might just bake them straight in the oven without steaming first because I don't think it makes much of a difference (except that maybe the steaming helps to draw out a lot of the chicken fat). Roasting is more healthy than deep-frying anyway, and less mess in the kitchen.

So my wings were ready and all that was needed was the sauce. I prepared two sauces. For the kids, I used oyster sauce, ketchup, hoisin, worchestershire sauce and sugar. The other was prepared using the same but with the addition of tabasco, ABC extra hot chilli sauce and szechuan peppercorn. I heated up the sauce in the wok, and tossed the wings in to coat. A few chopped spring onions and a sprinkling of sesame seeds, and it's ready! How easy is that? And tasty too!

Baked chicken wings in a sweet, sour and spicy sauce