Tan Dinh's chicken wings have a lot going on. There is the crunch of the crust, the garlic infused butter, the juice of the chicken, and the acidic pop of the lime, salt, and black pepper sauce. The combination of flavors works so well on poultry, that I wondered how it would do on other foods. I needed something crispy, and immediately fried oysters came to mind.The results however looked and tasted more like failure than success. First off, the 50-50 blend of all-purpose flour and cornmeal did not create the thick crust the oysters needed. The oysters were soaked in buttermilk for a few hours prior to dusting them in the mixture, but alas, still not a thick enough crust to block the sauce from invading. Secondly, using coarse ground corn meal proved to be a huge mistake. The hope was to create a thick, crunchy crust, but the grind on the cornmeal just made it seem like you were eating pebbles.
To make the sauce, I juiced four limes, mixed in some salt and pepper. To this, I added some clarified butter that had simmered with crushed garlic to make a butter sauce. It didn't really work - the sauce separated, and despite being cut with sugar, the limes were too acidic.
After frying the oysters, the drizzle of sauce over them caused the oysters to become a soggy flabby mess. Next time, instead of a loose sauce, perhaps a thick lime and garlic aioli would work.
Back to the cutting board. So armchair cooks, what would you have done?
Posts
3 comments:
I would have done it better.
1. Skip the buttermilk. Use cornflour (pearl meal) and wheat flour, mixed 50/50. Drain the oysters in a sieve for a few minutes before coating, and double-coat (toss a few at a time in meal, then a quick dip in egg wash & re-coat in meal).
2. I don't think the dipping sauce (muoi tieu chanh) has any butter or fat in it. Typically, it's just lime, salt, chili, and pepper (sometimes white pepper).
3. Speculation here: I think the wings at TD are wok-fried until crisp, then a bit of chopped garlic is tossed in at the very end and the wings tossed for a bit more time. It seems that the garlic infuses the coating, yet it is clearly in pieces on the outside.
Celeste,
Thanks for the tip on the flour. I drained them for a bit before coating, but I like the double dip method. Back in my fry cook days, I did a lot of oysters and for some reason I thought I remembered a coarser corn meal.
On the dipping sauce, I was trying to combine that lipidy, garlic coating on the outside of the wing with the bright acid of the dipping sauce. So my sauce was lime, salt, pepper, and then later I had the idea to whisk in the drawn butter. Not a good choice.
Who Dat!
Post a Comment