Featured Recipe: A Blog of Salt's Sweet and Sour Wings

I'm forever in search of a great Asian Chicken Wing recipe.  Correction: WAS forever in search.  There is nothing more comforting than digging into a batch of wings or drumsticks that is paired with a yummy sauce.  However, ranch dressing or bleu cheese can get pretty boring and pretty fattening quick.  When one thinks of Asian wings, one usually expects something involving soy sauce or fish sauce as an ingredient.  Imagine my surprise when I stumbled across A Blog of Salt's Sweet and Sour Chicken Wing recipe that has neither!  Instead, her recipe features oyster sauce, another staple Asian sauce.

Many thanks to Insatiably Epicurious for introducing me to A Blog of Salt.  Hop on over to A Blog of Salt's page for more delicious Vietnamese and Vietnamese fusion recipes!

With A Blog of Salt's permission, I'm sharing you this delish recipe.  Her recipe involves deep frying the chicken, which makes this meal a solid 5 star.  However, I modified her recipe by baking the chicken to allow variety so that those intimidated by deep frying can also enjoy this dish as well.

So without further ado, here is the BAKED version:

Ingredients
20 chicken wings/drummettes
1/4 cup oyster sauce
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp vinegar (note: I use rice vinegar)
chili paste to your liking (note: I use 1tsp of Huy Fong Vietnamese chili garlic sauce, adjust to taste)
1 tbsp garlic

Special Equipment
9 inch skillet

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Salt your chicken wings and or drummettes and place them on a lined baking sheet.  Bake the chicken for about 45 minutes or until the juices run clear.

3. Towards the end of the baking time for the chicken, in a separate mixing bowl, combine the oyster sauce, sugar, vinegar, chili paste, and garlic.  Add the sauce into a skillet.

4. When the chicken is done baking, remove them from the oven and immediately heat the skillet over medium heat.  The sauce should start turning syrupy as it reduces.  Keeping the heat on medium, add the chicken to the skillet and toss, making sure to coat each piece.  The sauce will adhere to the chicken as it continues to reduce.  There should be no liquid left when you're done coating.

Remove from heat and garnish with scallions.

If you enjoy chicken, check out my Healthy Buttermilk Oven "Fried" Chicken!

Bon appétit!