Swiss sweet-soy chicken wings

Ingredientsserves 4

Equipment

• A lidded pot just big enough for the wings

Method

1. Blanch the wings: drop them into boiling water with the ginger and wine for two minutes, lift out and rinse under cold water so the skin stays smooth and does not tear.
2. The Swiss sauce: bring the light soy, dark soy, rock sugar and two cups (500 ml) of water to the boil. If using the aromatics (star anise, cassia, shallots, onion, garlic, spring onion, coriander, carrot) simmer ten minutes until the sugar has dissolved and the pot smells sweet; the plain three-ingredient version is enough, a sweet master sauce in all but name.
3. Drop the wings into the boiling sauce, bring it back to the boil and cook one minute only.
4. Turn off the heat, cover, and leave the wings to steep for thirty to forty-five minutes: the heat of the pot cooks them through and the sauce goes in without the skin splitting. Steep, do not braise; a long boil makes them tough.
5. Cut at the joint to check: no pink at the bone and clear juices, 75°C at the thickest point; if not there, bring the sauce back to the boil and steep the wings ten minutes more.
6. Lift out, serve whole or chopped, and spoon a little sauce over. Strain the sauce, cool and refrigerate it, and it will do once or twice more topped up with a little water; boil it hard before it goes into the fridge and again before its next use.
7. The café's afternoon-tea plate is two wings with an iced milk tea; at home a plate of twelve is also a dinner dish with rice. Soy wings, 豉油雞翼, are the same method with half the sugar and dark soy for the colour.

Take care

• Contains soy and wheat (the soy sauces). The chicken must be cooked through: a whole wing needs the full steep, cut at the joint to check there is no pink at the bone, and the thickest part reaches 75°C. Boil leftover sauce before refrigerating and again before re-use, and discard it after two uses.

The story

The name is a mishearing: a waiter at 太平館, Hong Kong's oldest Western restaurant, told a foreign customer the wings were sweet and was heard to say Swiss, and the menu has said 瑞士 ever since. The Swiss sauce is a sweet master sauce in all but name, and the wings moved from the soy-sauce-Western dining room to the 茶餐廳's afternoon-tea board, the plate ordered at a quarter past three with an iced milk tea. The site's honey soy chicken wings (pan-fried) and soy sauce chicken (a whole bird steeped) are home-cooking pages and neither is this: the Swiss sauce is set apart by the rock-sugar sweetness and by steeping rather than braising.

Lo Fo Tong is cultural food-heritage reference, not medical advice. If you are pregnant, unwell or on medication, talk to your doctor or registered practitioner before changing what is in the pot.