Chinese red-cooking is a famous cooking method which is used in daily cooking for almost all Chinese cooks and housewives. The method of red cooking usually means to braise ingredients; on most occasions are meats, in soy sauce and rock sugar, which creates deeply savory dishes in the color of rich mahogany hue. And after red-cooking process, although fat is also contained, the taste will be fresher. In China, we name this cooking method as 红烧 (red cooking). Almost every cuisine in China gets its own types of red-cooking methods, producing slightly different tastes. However, it is most frequently used in Shanghai and Zhejiang province in China. People in that area loves to cook with soy sauces, similar to the fact that people in Sichuan province loves to cook with Doubanjiang or people in northern part of China loves to cook with black vinegar or sweet sauce. For more information about Chinese cooking method–check here.
Basically, making a red-cooking at home is not difficult. The ingredients are easy to find and process is so easy to worth it.
My husband loves to eat chicken wings, so I make chicken wings with various cooking method I can figure out. There are other chicken wing recipes on ChinaSichuanFood, including coca cola chicken wings (braised chicken wings simply with coca cola). And I will explore wing braised chicken wings, baked chicken wings. It would be lovely to have you join me. Comments and ideas can be delivered via comments or e-mails.
There are generally three process, pan-fry the chicken wings, simmer process and thick the sauce.
- 8 to 10 chicken wings , mid joint would be the best
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ tablespoon cooking wine , can be replaced by sherry
- One small section ginger sliced , half for marinading and half for stir-frying
- ½ tablespoon vegetable oil
- 2 cloves garlic sliced
- 2 whole star anises
- One small section of cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns
- 3 teaspoon light soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon rock sugar
- 1 tablespoon chopped spring onion
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Prepare a bowl; add salt, cooking wine and half of the ginger slices to marinade the chicken wings for about 10 minutes.
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Heat up ½ tablespoon vegetable oil and Sauté the wings until both the skin of both sides become golden-brown.
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Move the chicken wings out and leave the oil in the wok. Add ginger and garlic slices to stir-fry until we can smell the aroma. Then add star anise and cinnamon and Sichuan peppercorn to continue stir-fry about 2 minutes.
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Return the chicken wings; add light soy sauce and dark soy sauce. Fry for 1 minute.
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Add enough water to begin simmer process around 15 minutes?stirring occasionally.
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Add sugar in and use high fire to cook for another 5 minutes, making the sauce to thick gravy.
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Transfer the chicken wings to the plate and sprinkle some chopped spring onion before serving.
The combination between light soy sauce and dark soy sauce is important. Too much dark soy sauce will spoil the light red color. Thus I recommend using a combination.
If you love chicken wings, try my coca cola chicken wings too. Coca Cola chicken wings only require a box of coca cola for flavoring.
Another yummy-looking recipe Elaine. In the instructions it mentions to marinate the wings in salt but no salt is listed in ingredients. How much do you use? Also is the small section of sliced ginger to be used for both the marinade and for the sauce or should I slice up more? Thanks again and keep the good recipes coming!
Hi karen,
Thanks for your comment and correctness. I add the salt used in ingredients list now. And you can use half of the ginger slices for the marinade and half for the stir-fry process.
This looks so delicious! I just want to grab the whole plate from the screen! I’m glad to find your blog, I love Sichuan food & I can’t wait to try your recipes
Thanks Shannon. Do try the recipes you love and I hope to hearing form you about how they work. Besides,you get great recipes too. I am still very new for cookies and cakes and just on the way of learning.
Hi, if I am cooking 20pcs of chicken wings, do I double all the ingredients and seasoning? Thanks
Sure!