Sesame Almond Chicken Wings

Almond Sesame Wings with sauteed zucchini
and Sichuan Peppercorn Dry Drip

This is the wing recipe I mentioned a few posts ago regarding grinding almonds for pie crust.  I saved a few tbsp for this very recipe.  You don't have to make pie crust to make these wings though ;)

The original recipe is from the Frugal Gourmet's Three Ancient Cuisines, but I gotta say that the Frug was awfully stingy on his dredging mixture.  I've doubled the marinade, the wet dredge and the dry dredge for the same number of wings.  It was scrumptious btw.  The kids didn't want any, but they had Other Issues tonight and I think I could have served them ice cream covered cheese sticks with a side of cookies, muffins and bananas and they still wouldn't have touched it.  Whatevs, more for the grownups.

Rice flour is probably not a pantry staple at your household.  I have some b/c I had a fit of DIY-osity awhile back and thought I would be making my own baby powder.  I made some, it's great, but I don't need so much as to use up an entire 2 lbs. of rice flour.  Rice flour also makes meltingly tender shortbread and is a useful gluten-free wheat flour replacer.  If you need ideas for using up 2 lbs of rice flour.  Or you can use enough all-purpose flour and cornstarch to add up to the required amount of dredging material and skip the rice flour (conversely, if you want gluten free, you can skip the AP flour and use rice flour and cornstarch...also be sure to skip the soy sauce, if you do GF).

Last thought...if you fry these in a deep-fryer, you'll probably have a lot of sesame seeds loose in the oil afterwards.  You might want to consider frying in an electric skillet or making this the last use of the oil in the deep-fryer if you want to maintain pristine frying oil.  I screw up so you don't have to.


Sesame Almond Chicken Wings
Makes 24 wings (3-4 main dish servings, 6-8 appetizer servings)

12 wings, jointed and tips saved for another use
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp sherry
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 egg + 1 egg white, beaten
1/4 cup ground almonds (from about 1/3 cup whole almonds)
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup rice flour
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1 tbsp all-purpose flour
Vegetable oil for frying
For serving (optional): Sichuan Peppercorn Dry Dip

Mix wings with soy sauce, sherry and ginger.  Let stand at least 15 minutes, but you can do this step the night before for next-day cooking or freeze the wings in the marinade.  For a prep-ahead kit, put the egg mixture in a container, and mix together the remaining dry ingredients to store in another container.  Fridge or freeze.

Wings, dredged and ready to fry

To cook, thaw completely.  Heat oil to 365F.  Pour off marinade and toss wings with egg mixture.  Dredge each wing lightly in almond-sesame-flour mixture.  Fry in batches for 6 minutes until golden brown and cooked through.  Pin It