Marinated Orange Ginger Chicken Wings

How to marinate the wings

Chinese cuisines are full of chicken dishes made sticky and sweet, with plenty of spices. Marinated orange chicken wings are one version of such a dish. The meat marinates in orange juice with ginger and spices, then bakes, and the leftover marinade becomes the sauce. Everyone picks the spices and the overall heat to taste.

It’s best to buy wings without the third, thinnest part, the kind usually sold for “buffalo wings”. Still, you can trim off the thin part and treat the street cats.

1. Prepare the ingredients. Peel the large, sweet, juicy orange and cut the zest into thin strips. Peel the ginger and slice it into thin plates. Put the wings, ginger and zest in a large bowl.

   

2. Marinate the wings. Squeeze all the juice from the peeled orange. You don’t need to strain it, bits of pulp only help. Mix the orange juice with 1 tbsp lemon juice. Salt the wings, just a little, and add ground chili to taste. Mix well and pour the juices over. Mix again, cover the bowl with plastic wrap or an upturned plate, then refrigerate for 2-3 hours, which is enough.

   

How to bake

3. Prepare the wings and the oven. Preheat the oven to 180-190°C. Pour the marinade from the bowl into a cup, leaving the ginger and zest in it. Pat the wings dry with a napkin, drizzle with 1 tbsp vegetable oil and toss. Then spread them on a baking sheet or in a baking dish and put in the well-heated oven.

   

4. Bake the wings for 25-30 mins, going by how the surface browns. It helps to turn the wings over on the baking sheet now and then. By the way, if you can, bake the wings on a grill. While they cook, make the sauce.

   

How to make the sauce and glaze the wings

5. Boil the marinade with the spices. Pour all the marinade, including the zest and ginger slices, into a saucepan or small frying pan. Add 2-3 stars of star anise, 1 tsp brown sugar (5 g) and a little fragrant wine, sherry is perfect. Bring the sauce to a boil over medium heat and cook for 8-10 mins.

6. Reduce the sauce. Remove all the solid bits from it (zest, ginger, star anise) and keep cooking over low heat until it thickens to the consistency of honey. Set aside a third of the sauce for serving, as orange wings only gain from it.

   

7. Glaze the wings. Pour the remaining sauce over the baked wings and toss. Spread them on the baking sheet again, and you can line it with foil so the sauce doesn’t burn. Return the sheet to the oven for 5-10 mins so the sauce dries on the surface of the chicken. If you like, brush the wings with a little more sauce afterwards, and in 2-3 mins they are fully ready.

   

Serving

8. Put the wings on a serving plate, set a small gravy boat of the orange-ginger sauce next to them, sprinkle the wings with finely chopped green onion and add a few juicy orange segments. The dish is ready to serve, hot or warm but not cold.

   

   Many recipes add light soy sauce to the sauce. You can try it, but use less salt then, since soy sauce is quite salty. Instead of sugar you can use molasses or mirin, which works great. The marinade gets a special flavor with a pinch of wu xiang fen (five-spice powder), so if you have the blend, do try it.