This recipe is inspired by the BonChon Chicken from the BonChon restaurant chain. Bonchon means hometown. Now Chef Devaux is bringing his own take on this great recipe to your town!
Step 1: Preparing the sauce
Put 70 grams of brown sugar in a (sauce) pan, followed by 125 grams of soy sauce (1 gram roughly is 1 ml). Add 80 grams of mirin(Japanese cooking wine), 35 grams of rice vinegar and 50 grams of water. Then add 2 crushed medium sized garlic cloves, half a teaspoon of grated ginger, half a teaspoon of sesame oil, and half a teaspoon of gochujang chili paste (a fermented chili paste from Korea). Also sprinkle a little bit of cayenne pepper in the pan. Whisk the contents and cook on a low temperature for half an hour.
Step 2: Thickening the sauce
Put 60 grams of corn starch into a bowl and add an equal amount of cold water. It’s important to use cold water, otherwise clumps will develop. Whisk until the mixture is smooth. When the sauce has simmered for half an hour, add 3 or 4 tablespoons, one spoon at a time. Be sure to keep whisking, this will result in a nice, thick sauce.
You can check the consistency by sticking a spoon in the sauce. Run your finger across the back of the spoon. If the line stays, the sauce has the right thickness.
Step 3: Preparing the chicken wings
Cut the wings in 3 parts, by cutting through the bone joints. You don’t really need to cut all the way through. An incision usually is enough. After that you can separate the parts with your hands. If you really don’t know where to cut, watch the video and see how Chef Devaux cuts the wings.
The smallest part is mainly bone and skin, you don’t need that for this recipe. But don’t throw it away. Instead use it to make chicken stock. Put it in the oven, together with some vegetables. Grill it, add some water and you’ll have a delicious home-made chicken stock.
Step 4: Preparing the batter
Put 150 grams of tempura batter mix into a bowl. Add 60 grams of corn starch. This will make the end result very nice and crispy. Also add 8 grams of sea salt. Optionally add 10 g of shichimi (a Japanese spice mix). Mix it using a whisk. Slowly add 240 grams of ice cold water. Keep mixing until you get a quite thick, sticky batter.
Submerge the chicken wings into the batter, take them out and put them on a plate. Let it rest for a few minutes, so that excessive batter can drip off the chicken. The chicken wings still need to be fully covered in batter, but too much batter on your wings is no good.
Step 5: Deep frying the chicken wings
Deep fry the wings on a temperature of 190 ˚C (374 ˚F), using a fryer basket. Don’t fry more than 6 or 7 wings at a time, otherwise the temperature will lower too much and you’ll end up with greasy instead of crispy chicken wings. After 1 minute, take the basket out of the oil, but leave it in the deep fryer. Don’t turn off the deep fryer.
When necessary, use cooking tongs to loosen the wings from the basket. Let it rest for 1 minute. The cooking process will continue this way, which is important for a great result.
Now put the basket back in the oil for 2 minutes. Take the fryer basket out of the deep fryer and put the chicken wings on a paper towel to let them cool a bit.
Step 6: Adding the sauce
Put the chicken wings into a ziplock bag and add 2 or 3 tablespoons of the sauce. Now massage the sauce all over the wings. You can of course also do this without the bag and simply use a bowl. The less plastic you use, the better! Just make sure your hands are really clean.
Done! Your BonChon Korean Chicken Wings are ready. Enjoy and if possible, share this meal with your friends. They’ll love it!
Ingredients:
Sauce:
Batter:
Equipment: