I was thinking about the Chinese paper-wrapped chicken, deciding to make it for my daughter & gang for her birthday next month.
Then I thought, "I wonder if you can do that with chicken pieces?"
Never know till you try...
I had bought chicken drumsticks today, and I made a marinade of Worcestershire sauce, cumin, oregano, paprika, soy sauce,salt, pepper and 1/2 tsp of pure sesame oil (from the Asian aisle at the market). Put the drumsticks in a qt Ziploc and poured the marinade over them, into the fridge for about an hour.
Then I wrapped each drumstick in a foil rectangle, folded the long edges together several times to make an oil-tight seal, then folded the short edges several times - like an envelope
Heated oil to 400 F and fried the packets, about 13 minutes each side.
Made green beans same way but only a drizzle of sesame oil and one of balsamic vinegar. The beans only needed about 8 minutes.
Tasty.
You can also do this in the oven, on the grill, or in the coals of a campfire, like hobo stew.
I can understand why oil would work so much better than water, even though the oil never touches the chicken.
Is there a risk of fire with the oil so hot? Seems like somewhere I read that oil will ignite at like 4xx F degree with the "xx" depending on the type oil.
I was thinking of all those home inventors who use chicken fat and used cooking oil to fuel their automobiles, so figured it it would be just a bit warmer than diesel fuel or kerosene before responding to a spark by igniting :) Understandably, auto-igniting would be a bit higher.
We had one frying-pan fire when sizzling oil splattered and the pan went to flame when it was ignited by an adjacent burner that was cooking something else.
In the panic to extinguish it, I didn't stop to check the temperature :)
Ever since, have been hesitant to watch a pan of oil either sizzle or smoke.
:) Tomorrow morning's bacon will be at 410 degrees F rather than 385!
