Coca-cola Chicken Wings 可乐鸡翅

Recently, I took a break from my career and went back to hometown, Penang to help my dad to renovate our old house while spending some quality family time with him. With the old house under full renovation and not in livable condition, we temporarily moved to stay with my second brother and his family.

Other than an hour or two daily playing a Project Manager's role checking on the renovation status, I had a very relaxing schedule in Penang. With ample time to spare, I took over sister-in-law's kitchen to prepare dinner for the family to ease her busy working schedules.

Frankly, I have not been cooking for a long long time. In fact, ever since we moved back from Auckland and with Auntie Lan back to live with us and taking over my kitchen, I have not been using the wok spatula for quite some time already.

In the hope to prepare good meals for dad, I regained the passion to try out new dishes again. I found this simple and easy recipe via Facebook.

Coca-Cola Chicken Wings (可乐鸡翅). Yes, no kidding, this recipe only uses the famous Coca-Cola soft drink and soya sauce as main ingredients with no water added in. I also wish to clarify that this is not a Western cuisine, even though Coca-Cola is originated from the USA, Coca-Cola Chicken is one of the famous Chinese dishes in Southern China.


Well, this is another good example of the East meets West fusion.



The use of Coca-Cola with high sugar content easily caramelized and tenderized the chicken, leaving a sweet, sticky and glazed appearance on the chicken wings.


It might not be a top pick in a healthy menu list for dad but it was a sure winner for the kids and party menu. In fact, I must admit to a certain extent, it was tastier than the traditional soya sauce chicken.

Coca-cola Chicken Wings INGREDIENTS: 8-10 chicken wings ( cut into drummettes and wings, you can also use drumsticks ) 1 tin of Coca- Cola ( not recommended to use diet coke) 1-2 tbsp. Soya sauce ( to your own taste) 1tbsp. dark soya sauce ( to your own taste) 1 tbsp. Chinese   Shaoxing cooking wine ( optional) Spices 1-2 pieces of Star Anise, cinnamon sticks Few slices of ginger Few stalks of green onions, cut the white section into 2-3 cm long, the green leaves chopped MARINADE: (best more than half an hour ) 1 tsp. of salt 1 tsp of Sesame oil 1 tbsp of Shaoxing cooking wine (optional) Dash of pepper METHOD: Clean wings, pat dry with kitchen towels and score them symmetrically on both sides set aside. Place the cleaned chicken wings into a basin, and add the marinade seasoning and half of the green onion sections and ginger slices. Mix well, and leave to marinate for half an hour. Heat wok with some cooking oil, brown the chicken wings for a minute, dish up and set a side. Pour out the excess cooking oil leaving just one tbsp. of cooking  oil in the wok and sauté the left over sliced ginger, green onion and spices in the wok until fragrant. Add the browned chicken wings and stir well. Pour in 3/4 tin of Coke and 2 tbsp. of soya sauce and dark soya sauce and stir well. Cover it and simmer over medium heat for 25 minutes. When chicken is done and turned into caramel color and drying up, add a tbsp. of cooking wine and stir evenly. Turn off the heat,  transfer chicken wings to a serving platter and serve. 可乐鸡翅 材料 8-10只全鸡翅膀切成鸡翅中段和小腿（你也可以用鸡腿） 1罐可口可乐（不推荐使用健怡可乐） 1-2汤匙酱油（随自己的口味） 1汤匙黑酱油（随自己的口味） 1汤匙绍兴料酒（可选） 调味品1-2枚八角，肉桂棒 生姜几片 青葱，切白色部分为2-3厘米长，叶子切碎 腌料：（最好超过半小时） 1茶匙盐 1小勺香油 1汤匙绍兴料酒（可选）些许胡椒粉 方法： 将清洗过的鸡翅用厨房纸巾轻轻拍干，倒在盆里，加入腌料和一半的葱节和姜切片拌匀腌半小时。 炒锅烧热放一些食用油，把鸡翅炒匀煎黄一分钟，盛起备用。 倒出多余的食用油，剩下一汤匙油在炒锅，加入姜片，葱花和香料炒香。 待香味， 加入鸡翅炒匀。倒入3/4瓶可乐和调味料 2汤匙酱油和黑酱油炒匀试味。 加盖，中火煮25分钟，当鸡熟了，变成焦糖色并开始干起来添加一个汤匙料酒，搅拌均匀后，关火， 取出上碟。

Clay Pot Chicken Rice 瓦煲鸡饭（电饭煲版）

Rice cooker - Clay Pot Chicken Rice?

Clay pot chicken rice is one of the well known hawker delights in Malaysia. We never expected to have this dish in the menu of our packed lunches during our Great Kiwi Road trip. However, with Auntie Ah Lan traveling with us, anything is possible. Among the packed lunches we had on the road were clay pot chicken rice, sandwiches, noodles and fried rice. Ming Ray commented this clay pot chicken rice was the best packed lunch he had on the road. He even requested me to add in to his school lunch box menu when school reopened!

You might wonder how to do that while we were traveling on the road with limited utensils? I did mention that I packed a few cooking utensils with us on this road trip, but clay pot? No, of course not!
The clay pot chicken rice we shared below is a modified version using our magic rice cooker again. That being the case, the title above was a bit misleading then. But do rest assured that the taste of the chicken rice does not differ much from the clay pot version. J

This dish is easy and convenient to prepare. It is a great meal when you are lazy to cook but still yearn for a decent meal. You can even skip the stir fried part and just dump everything raw into rice cooker and cook everything in one pot. I used to cook this way to save the hassle of cleaning extra pots and pans. But this method is not recommended by Auntie Ah Lan as she claimed the rice would be tastier and more aromatic following the stir frying preparation.

Hakka Rice Cooker Salt Baked Chicken 客家盐焗鸡

Asian Style Christmas Bird?

Few months ago my eldest brother sent me an email introducing the Salted Chicken which was a trademark of Hakka Cuisine. This dish reminded him of the salted steamed rice wine chicken (客家盐酒鸡) our mum used to cook for the Chinese New Year eve dinner when we were kids. Ever since our mum suffered from Alzheimer's and was admitted to a nursery care, we no longer had the chance to taste this dish. We missed that unique home brewed sweet rice wine flavored chicken. The sticky rice wine (自酿米酒) was home brewed by our mum. Her rice wine was popular among our relatives and friends for use in home cooking, especially well sought after in the Chinese after birth confinement diet。But it is sad I no longer have the chance to learn from my mother L

Seeing me getting interested in cooking and started off this food blog, my brother suggested me to learn up our Hakka cuisine and shared in this blog too. I reckoned this was a good idea and started to surf for related Hakka recipes, and then I came across this creative and modern way of making Hakka salted chicken.

The traditional Hakka cooking method used parchment paper to wrap up a whole chicken, then buried it in a wok full of fried coarse salt and simmered till it was cooked; very arduous. This one however requires only a rice cooker to do the magic. This lazy people way of salt baking may not show the true flavor of Hakka Salted Chicken but it is surely a simple and healthy way to cook a chicken without compromising much on the taste.

Because I had a small rice cooker, I could only cook size 9, chicken. Instead of the whole chicken you can also opt for parts such as drumsticks or wings. I had attempted using chicken, wings and drumsticks. They all tasted flavorsome and not greasy. I served this chicken with Hainanese chicken rice. Of course no chicken rice is complete without the special chicken rice chilies, isn't it? J

Hakka Salt Baked Chicken 客家盐焗鸡 - Featured in Group Recipes 30/12/2010

This year, we celebrated our Christmas at Hahei Camp site with limited utensil and a very basic kitchen; I had used this recipe to make our very own Asian style Christmas birds for our Christmas dinner. J

Baked Hoisin Sauce Chicken Wings 海鲜酱烤鸡翅 - Featured in Group Recipes

Finger licking good?

This is yet another simple recipe kids are sure to love. This recipe also demonstrates a healthy way to prepare kids' favorite chicken meals by oven baking rather than deep frying which can be quite oily. I used chicken wings because they were on special; however you can use drumsticks with this same recipe.

The wings are truly inviting with their caramel skin appearance, aren't they?

Baked Hoisin Sauce Chicken Wings 海鲜酱烤鸡翅 - Featured in Group Recipes 4/12/2010

Soya Sauce Mushroom Chicken With Braised Eggs 香菇豉油鸡

Tired of eating fried chicken but still want chicken ? Try this......
This is one of my regular dishes serve on dinner table; it is also my boy favorite especially the braised eggs (卤蛋) in it. When he sees this dish on dinner table, he can finish his dinner within no time. J

This dish is not only great to go with rice, the leftover especially the sauce is great to go with dry noodles (干捞面) for next day lunch. As I always say cooking is kind of an art, be adventurous to add in color to your dish, explore to use ingredients as you like to your taste.

For this recipe, other than sticking to the marinade sauce and chicken, you can have your own variation for the rest of the ingredients by adding veggie too. My version change very much depend on what in my fridge for that day J

Yesterday when I cooked them, I only have button mushroom, well look like time to do more marketing to stock up ……..

Soya Sauce Mushroom Chicken With Braised Eggs  香菇豉油鸡