Swiss Chicken Wings(瑞士雞翼)

Introduction

Chicken wings are so popular in Hong Kong that they are commonly served in the Hong Kong restaurants. Many Hongkongers cook chicken wings with various cooking methods and serve them during various social gatherings and festivals such as Christmas, birthdays, dinner and parties.

Usually different cooking ingredients and methods are used to cook this dish, so the taste can be a bit different. This makes Hong Kong food unique because of the creativity of Hongkongers in culinary arts.

In this blog post I would like to introduce a Hongkonger’s favorite dish — Swiss Chicken Wings, its interesting back story and most importantly, the recipe which teaches you how to cook this tasty dish!

Back story

Swiss Chicken wings was a dish invented by the chef in a Hong Kong restaurant called Tai Ping Koon Restaurant (太平館餐廳) during 1950s. This dish is chicken wings with a special sauce which is called Swiss sauce and made by this restaurant.

This dish had been originally called ‘Chicken wings with Chinese Marinade(鹵水雞翼)’ until 1950s. In the 1950s, one day a foreigner appreciated the chicken wings after eating them so he told the waiter that they were sweet.

The staff could not understand English very well so he asked a foreigner the meaning of ‘Sweet’ in English, but the foreigner misheard the word and told him that it was ‘Swiss’(瑞士) which was a country in Europe instead of the sweet taste. The shop owner thought the taste of chicken wings was in Swiss style, so he renamed this dish as Swiss Chicken wings (瑞士雞翼).

The Swiss sauce is mixed with soy sauce, vegetables, and spices like ginger, carrot, celery, onion, light soy sauce, dark sauce, shaoxing sauce, pork bones, sugar which can be very complicated when you make the sauce. But the restaurant has their own way of making this sauce and they have to marinate the chicken wings for a whole night to get all the flavorings absorbed in the chicken wings. That’s why the chicken wings are sweet with this sauce.

Nowadays, cooking the Swiss Chicken wings can be very simple because a lot of Chinese sauce companies produce Swiss sauce which has a similar flavor to the sauce made by the restaurant. Many Hongkongers also make their own Swiss sauce which is based on the ingredients provided by the Tai Ping Koon Restaurant.

The following recipe is the general method of making the chicken wings with Swiss sauce based on the Youtube videos edited by our fellow Hongkongers. Some provide English recipes in the video descriptions. You can find them by searching 瑞士雞翼 in the Youtube website. In the following I will give you the general idea of cooking this dish with the prepared Swiss sauce in English:

Ingredients

• 1 packet of Chicken wings
• Swiss Sauce, suggested portion 410ml
• 620 ml Water

The portion above is based on the Swiss sauce from the Hong Kong Chinese sauce companies. Too little water will make the Swiss Sauce too thick that makes the chicken wings difficult to be soaked inside the sauce.

Cooking Steps

1. Defrost the chicken wings and remove the feathers on the chicken wings if needed. Wash the chicken wings with water. However, In some countries like UK, it is not permitted to wash the chicken wings as this will spread gems over the kitchen. Please clean the chicken wings according to the hygiene standards in your country.
2. Pour the whole bottle of Swiss sauce and water with a portion of 1 and a half bottle of Swiss sauce into the pot
3. Boil the sauce inside the pot until the steam starts coming out from the pot and the sauce starts boiling inside.
4. Put the chicken wings into the boiled sauce in the pot.
5. Switch off the stove. Cover half of the pot with the lid and let the chicken wings soaked with the sauce inside the pot for at least 30 minutes
6. Switch on the stove again and adjust to high heat.
7. Once the steam comes out and the sauce starts boiling inside, turn off the stove
8. Keep the pot covered with a lid to soak the chicken wings again for another 5 minutes.
9. Chicken wings are ready to serve after 5 minutes

Cooking Tips

1. Sometimes, salt is added to the chicken wings before adding the chicken wings into the pot is to remove the unpleasant smell of the chicken wings
2. The color of the chicken wings will become darker and the chicken wings will be sweeter if we spend more than 30 minutes soaking the chicken wings the first time.
3. A 5 minute soaking inside the pot is needed to get the chicken wings fully cooked before serving.
4. The texture of the chicken flesh will become smooth, tender and not too dry after a 5 minute soaking.

Places of buying the Ingredients

Usually the ingredients of making this sauce can be bought in the Chinese supermarkets. If you are lazy to make the sauce, a ready made Swiss sauce can also be bought there.

I hope these Swiss Chicken Wings will bring you lots of joy after you cook and eat them.

Previously published in Medium