「手羽さき」

You can’t go wrong with tebasaki, the Japanese fried chicken wings. No other dish deserves more licking fingers than this one, right?

Tebasaki (手羽先 – “chicken wings”) is the Japanese counterpart of the American buffalo wings. Crispy chicken skin, glazed with sweet teriyaki sauce and hiding gems of moist meat between the bones… Hmmm, an instant mouth-watering imagery.

The ingredients of today’s dish are quite low-cost! Chicken meat is one of the cheapest meat in the market and wingtips are by far one of the least noble parts of it. While breast and tights are popular portions of chicken, wingtips typically used to have little use besides soup stock because of its small size and lack of meat… as a result, these are fairly cheap in Japan.

…In other words, buying large portions of wingtips probably won’t hurt your pockets, have fun making piles of tebasaki without worrying too much!

This dish is a specialty from Nagoya, Aichi prefecture, where you can even enjoy… a tebasaki-flavored ice cream.

Looks good? The label says it does include some chicken meat…

Compared to other deep-frying dishes, this one is quite easy and does not make such a huge mess in the kitchen. Drying the skin as much as possible before preparing is essential to make a hands down perfect tebasaki. Finally, just be careful to not to burn the sauce.

Today’s recipe includes a sauce recipe that goes really well with the chicken wings, but you may leave some without sauce and eat them straight away  too.

This dish is also a good call as a snack for beer and alcohol… So you don’t forget to save your bottle/can!

Wakako ordered a yakitori set and, of course, that included tebasaki (green plate)!

Tebasaki ingredients:

1. 8 chicken wings
2. Salt and pepper
3. Potato starch
4. Vegetable and sesame oil mixture (around 2 to 1 ratio)
5. Sesame seeds for decoration

Sauce:

1. 6tbsp of shoyu
2. 6tbsp of mirin
3. 1 pinch of salt
4. 6tbsp of sugar
5. Pepper flakes
6. 1 garlic, crushed

1. Use double fry.
2. First fry oil temperature: 170℃ (356°F)
3. Cooking time for first fry: 120 seconds (no turning) .
4. Second fry oil temperature: 185℃ (356°F)
5. Cooking time for first fry: 30 seconds (no turning).

1. Make the sauce by combining all ingredients in a pot and simmering in medium heat.
2. When the mixture starts bubbling hard, wait around 5 minutes then turn off the heat.
3. Season the chicken wings with salt and pepper. Then leave them to rest for at least one hour.
4. Dry the wings thoroughly.
5. Coat the wings with potato starch. Pat to remove the excess.
6. Use double fry technique. At first, deep fry at 170℃ for 60 seconds.
7. Second deep fry at 180℃ for 30 seconds.
8. Glaze the wings with sauce while still hot.
9. Serve the dish with lemon and cabbage leaves.

Important point: drying the wings thoroughly helps not only letting the crust become perfect but also makes the chicken meat safer to deep fry. Remember that hot water spits from the oil – that can be quite dangerous.

Dipping wings in sauce while still hot helps sticking it to the surface.