Recipe Mystery

So there's this recipe I thought I lost. My not-quite-ex-mother-in-law gave it to me because she knew I loved her chicken wings. The only problem was, back when she gave it to me, 15 years ago, I didn't cook. Like, I didn't cook ANYTHING. But loving the recipe, I kept in anyway just in case one day I decided to try.

Fast forward 15 years to now, when I thought I'd lost the recipe. My husband has friends over for dinner and has brought home shrimp. For no apparently reason, he had bought these things, and had no plan of what to do with them, so I started to go through recipe books to look for something inspiring. I open a book I haven't seen for a while, and *wow!* there, taped into the front of it, is my long lost chicken wing recipe! Too cool!!!

So yesterday, I had the perfect conditions to try making them: Home alone, so I could experiment and not screw up anyone else's dinner if it all went wrong, and most of the ingredients.

There was just one problem: What this 'recipe' was, was a collection of ingredients, but no instructions on what to do with them. It was called 'Fried Chicken Wings', so I figured that some frying must be involved.

I decided to do the easiest thing: Mix everything together in a bowl, coat the wings with it, and then deep fry them.

I mixed everything as best I could. Two things were missing- thick soy sauce, and Chinese 5 spice. To make up for this, I added extra regular soy sauce and added each ingredient in 5 spice separately. All I had to do now, was just cook the wings into tasty perfection. Unfortunately, this is where it all started going wrong.

Problem #1: The oil heat was too high. As such, I charred the outside, but still had raw insides.

Problem #2: Did I mention the charred outsides? So to finish cooking the insides, I dipped them into more sauce and put them back into the fryer.

How did they taste? Well, like any charred chicken wings would, I guess. They did not seem anything like what I remember other than the fact that there was chicken involved.

So what's next in this saga? My plan is to try making the recipe again, according to the instructions of other Chinese chicken wing recipes I've found online. Most of them involve marinating the wing overnight, while other Asian recipes that fry stuff involves cooking them twice-- once to cook the meat, and then again after being dipped into a batter.

Stay tuned for the next update on how this goes.