Feral Cooks

Good food shouldn't be tame

Dakgangjeong (Korean Fried Chicken with Soy Sauce)

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I love frying food! I also love frying chicken—especially if it is marinated and coated with corn or potato starch. This recipe calls for using chicken wings, but since I have an aversion to chicken bones, I cut boneless chicken thighs into chicken-wing size. If you’re a food purist, best stick to using wings.

This is a Food & Wine version of this dish. Sadly, I was too lazy to investigate whether it’s authentic or not, so if it’s not, I guess it’s not.

I’d make this again, but it could use about twice as much sauce to ensure each piece is fully covered.

What you’ll need:

  • 2 pounds chicken wings, cut at joints, wing tips discarded
  • 1 cup potato starch
  • 4 cups vegetable oil, divided
  • 2 small jalapeños, stemmed and thinly sliced (about 0.5 cups), plus more for garnish
  • 0.25 cups light-brown sugar
  • 0.25 cups soy sauce
  • 5 medium garlic cloves, sliced
  • Chrysanthemum greens (optional)(where do you even find these in the US?)

What to do:

Make the chicken: Working in batches, toss the wings and starch together in a large bowl or sealable freezer bag to coat, shaking off the excess starch. Repeat the process, coating all the wings a second time. Place the starched wings in an even layer on a wire rack set on a large, rimmed baking sheet. Let them stand at room temperature until the starch begins to appear wet—about 15 minutes.

Next, heat enough oil to 350°F within a high-walled vessel for deep frying the wings. Working in batches, fry the wings, turning often, until light golden-brown—3 to 4 minutes. Drain on a baking sheet lined with paper towels. After all the wings have been fried, working in batches, return the fried wings to the hot oil and fry again for about 2 minutes. Return to baking sheet.

Make the sauce: Combine the jalapeños, brown sugar, soy sauce, garlic, and 0.5 cups oil in a medium skillet. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until the oil begins to bubble, about 2 minutes. Working again in batches, place 5 wings in sauce in skillet and toss constantly using tongs until the wings are a deep golden-brown and fully coated—about 30 seconds. Place the wings on a serving platter.

Garnish with additional fresh jalapeño slices and, if using, the chrysanthemum greens. Serve hot or warm.

Banana Pudding Chocolate Chip Cookies

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These are good. Notice I didn’t use the words “absolutely spectacular,” because they’re not. In my opinion, they were just good. I gave a ton of them to a friend and his wife, and they liked them. But they didn’t exactly way they were “mind-bendingly and outrageously delicious.”

The flavor was very good, but they were, for lack of a better term, flaccid. This is the last disappointing recipe I’ll use from salon.com.

Give them a try, you may love them. Or steal the banana pudding idea and use it in a better choco-chip recipe.

What you’ll need:

  • 2 sticks softened butter
  • 0.5 cups white sugar
  • 0.5 cups light brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1T pure vanilla extract
  • 1 box instant banana cream pudding
  • 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1t baking soda
  • 0.5t teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup dark chocolate chips
  • 0.75 cups crushed Nilla Wafers

What do to:

Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, vanilla extract and dry pudding-mix until well combined.

Then, beat in the flour, baking soda and salt until just combined. Last, stir in the chocolate chips and crushed cookies with a large spoon.

To prep for baking, drop tablespoon-sized scoops of cookie dough onto the parchment-lined baking sheets, about 2 inches apart. Make sure to keep them far apart—these things really spread when cooking.

Chill the dough scoops in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Begin heating your oven so it hits 350°F when the 30 minutes is up.

Bake for 8 – 12 minutes, until the edges just begin to turn golden brown.

Remove the baking sheets from the oven and let the cookies cool for 8 to 10 minutes before transferring them to a wire cooling rack.

Menma

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Menma is essentially flavored bamboo shoots. It’s most often added to ramen noodles, which is a perfect use for menma, but we use it in stir fries, fried rice and even salads.

Making menma is really easy, and it tastes great!

There are many recipes for this online, and this one is just an amalgamation of several that looked promising.

What you’ll need:

  • 8 oz can of sliced bamboo shoots
  • 100ml water
  • 1T tbsp sesame oil other oil works, too, in a pinch)
  • 1t bouillon powder—any flavor pretty much works
  • 1T sake
  • 1T soy sauce
  • 2T mirin
  • 0.25t chili oil (use Japanese ra-yu oil, if you have it)

What to do:

Open the can of shoots, then drain and rinse them in a colander. 

Mix the water and bouillon in a small bowl, then mix in the the rest of the liquids.

Add the sesame oil into a small preferably nonstick frypan and sauté the shoots for a few minutes over medium-high heat.

Add the mixed liquids and stir the shoots around to ensure they’re submerged. Reduce the liquid over low-medium heat until mostly evaporated. 

Let cool, then use or refrigerate.