This dish isn’t for the faint hearted!!! Not the taste or heat from the chillies……but the smell of fish sauce! The fermented fish which is how the sauce is created really causes the kitchen to have a lasting strong smell!! If you can get over the smell, this is quite a nice tasting and cheap dish to create.

This dish has three parts to it. The marinade, the flouring and frying of the chicken then the sauce. All are very simple, hence the reason I’m doing it !!

Marinade –

2 tbsp of Chinese cooking wine (Miren), 2 tsp of ground black pepper, 1 tsp of finely chopped ginger, 1 tbsp of fish sauce. It’s important to keep the marinade after you’ve used it for the final sauce.

Frying –

The marinated chicken ( purchased your standard supermarket 1 kilo of chicken wings), 1 cup of cornflour and a good amount of rapeseed oil.

Sauce –

4 garlic cloves finely chopped, 2 green finger chillies finely chopped, 1 red chilli finely chopped, 3 tbsp of lime juice, 2 tbsp of fish sauce, 3 tbsp of sugar and 2 tbsp of chopped coriander.

Method –

First for the marinade. Place all the ingredients in a large bowl. The Chinese cooking wine, fish sauce, black pepper and ginger. Give them a mix to bring them all together. Add the chicken wings and mix again ensuring the wings are coated. Leave for a couple of hours. I left mine in the fridge for 24 hours.

For the frying.

Heat the rapeseed in a large heavy based pan. When you see the bubbles forming you are ready to fry.

Place the cornflour in a large bowl. Dust the chicken wings in the flour and shake off any excess flour.

Add them to the hot oil. You will have to do this a few at a time. If you over crowd the pan you lower the temperature of the oil.

You want to fry them so they take on a nice golden crust.

Just as an additional way of ensuring the chicken is cooked all the way through I added the fried wings to a tray and placed in the oven for 20 minutes at 190 degrees.

The sauce –

Whilst the chicken is in the oven you can start the sauce using the same pan as you fried the chicken in as there are nice crusty bits in the pan.

Heat the pan and you might need to add a bit more oil. Once the oil is shimmering add the diced garlic. Fry this off for a couple of minutes but do not burn the garlic as this makes it bitter. Remove from the oil once it’s cooked with a slotted spoon.

Add to the empty pan the chopped chillies and fry for about a minute.

Stir in the retained marinade, fish sauce, lime juice and sugar.

Allow this to simmer for a couple of minutes as it will naturally thicken due to the sugar.

Add back in the cooked chicken and garlic ensuring to coat all the chicken with the sauce.

Finish the dish with the chopped coriander.

From start to finish this was a nice and therapeutic fish to create.

The recipe was taken from Dan Toombs but modified to suit me.

Thanks for reading my ramblings if you have!!