Hello everyone! Today I’m gonna explain to you how to make an appetizer which is called Coca Cola Chicken Wings. I put it in the category of “Chinese Dishes” but I’m not sure whether it’s Chinese or not because we didn’t have Coca Cola until recently I guess. I read from the Coca Cola history that it has only been in China for 37 years. However, if you wanna say it’s western dish I also doubt it because when I was in the UK or am in Switzerland, people from there or other countries always seem to be quite surprised when I mention Coca Cola chicken wings. “You add Coca Cola to cook dishes?” That’s what they usually say.
I have to say this dish is really popular among Chinese people either in China or abroad, but maybe more popular abroad I guess because we don’t usually get used to salad or pizza so quickly when we first go abroad so we have too cook by ourselves. I think this might be how Coca Cola chicken wings were invented haha. In a western kitchen where you see chicken wings and the most popular drink – Coca Cola, you just mix them and add some garlic and chili when you’re starving and it turns out to be really good. Therefore the recipes was shared among students abroad and improved. Then when the students finish their studies, the recipe travels back to China with them so people in China also started cooking this dish.
The whole story I motioned above is totally an imagination and is made up without any theoretical basis, but that’s my guess haha.
Now let’s get back to this dish. Because of Coca Cola, this dish is a bit sweet and if you like spicy food you can add chilis which make it more appetizing. I usually add cumins because it gives this dish a little bit of BBQ flavor but if you don’t like them, just simply don’t add them. This dish is really a treat for children. However, I have to say that don’t cook and eat it too often as there is quite some amount of sugar and oil, thus making it a bit unhealthy, but if you cook it every 2 months or something I don’t think it’s gonna be a threat to your health. What’s more, you are having this dish as appetizer so with the amount of chicken wings I cooked you can probably eat them for 2-3 days for two people. Now let’s get started.
1. Ingredients
- Chicken wings (1.3kg)
- Coca Cola (500ml)
- Sunflower oil (35g)
- Cooking wine (20g)
- Cumin (6g)
- Salt (12g)
- Chili (1-2 depending on how spicy you want the dish to be)
- Garlic (4-5 cloves)
- Ginger (some)
2. Preparation
Cut the ginger into slices and garlic into halves. Put the chicken wings into a bog bowl and add in 15g sunflower oil, all the cooking wine, cumins, salt, chili, garlic and ginger. Mix all the ingredients and marinate the wings for 30-40 mins.
3. Cooking
Add the rest of the oil into a big flat pan (better non-sticky). I suggest that you use a big pan, as big as possible so we can fry all the wings at one time. I’ll explain a bit more later.
Put the chicken wings in one by one. Make sure one side of the wing touches the pan and move it from time to time so the skin doesn’t get attached to the pan.
Check from time to time and when you see the side that touches the pan gets golden yellow, turn the wings over and fry the other side. I said at the beginning that one side has to attach the pan because we need to fry both sides till they both get golden yellow. (If you can’t put all the wings in like this then you will have to divide the wings into two portions or even 3 portions if you have a really small pan, and fry one portion first and then the second portion.)
After both sides of all the chicken wings have turned golden, it’s time to add Coca Cola. Move the wings a bit to make sure most them are immersed in Coca Cola.
Cover the pan and let it boil for 20 mins (fire 4/6). (If you’d like the wings to taste very soft, you can boil them for even 25-30 mins)
After 20 mins, remove the cover and change fire to 5/6 and let it boil again for another 10 mins. When you see almost half of Coca Cola has evaporated, turn off the fire and the dish is done. (Don’t wait still there’s no sauce but only oil left. The wings taste much better with some sauce on top instead of only oil.)
Bon Appetite and remember, though they taste good, don’t finish them in one day. 🙂
