Chicken Wings in Cocoa-Hot Sauce

I like spicy chicken wings... I usually order a serving every time I place an order for pizza.  There is just something about it that can get very addicting and yummy.  They can be very messy to eat but I guess that is part of the charm in eating hot wings especially if you use your hands instead of the utensils :)

This recipe for chicken wings is based on a Good Housekeeping cookbook that my sister-in-law gave me recently.  I used cocoa powder instead of grated dark chocolate since I didn't have any in the house.  The result is a decadent variation of the classic hot wings that I do like very much.

Cooking this takes a few steps and several cooking vessels so be prepared to wash a mountain of dirty dishes afterwards...hehehe. I used one cooking pot for frying the chicken wings and another for the sauce.  I also used several plates for the preparation which was my mistakes since I should have used a ziplock bag for dredging the wings in seasoned flour.  That would have saved me a little bit of time and fewer dirty dishes...

The recipe calls for a cup of butter but I cut it down to half and still got a good result.  I do not like my food too greasy anyway so it worked out well.  Instead of using a regular hot sauce to make the dish spicy, I used a combination of kochukaro (Korean powdered chili) and Sriracha (Vietnamese hot sauce).  The kochukaro don't dissolve well so the sauce can be a little gritty but I liked it anyway.  You can adjust the spices to suit your taste but the proportion that I used (1 Tbsp kochukaro and 2 Tbsp Sriracha) was good enough for me- not too spicy but with enough hint of spiciness. 

Dredging the chicken wings in seasoned flour before frying not only gives it a nice flavor but also makes it crunchy even after the sauce has been added.  I think that if you do not dredge the chicken wings in flour prior to frying, the wings will become soggy once the sauce is added.  The addition of cocoa powder in the sauce gives it a darker color and deeper flavor than normal hot wing sauce.  

Ingredients:

2 lbs chicken wings

3/4 All-purpose flour for dredging

sea salt and freshly ground pepper, according to taste.

1 Tbsp cocoa powder

2 Tbsp Sriracha hot sauce

1 Tbsp kochukaro (Korean chili powder)

1/2 cup butter, room temp

oil for frying

1. In a bowl, combine flour with salt and ground pepper.  Mix thoroughly

2. Dredge chicken wings in flour mixture, remove excess and set aside.

3. Heat oil in a deep pan.  Add a few chicken wings at a time and cook until done.  Remove from heat and place in a paper towel lined plate to absorb excess grease. Set aside.

4. Heat another pan over medium heat.  Add butter and cook until melted.

5. Add Sriracha and kochukaro. Cook for a minute or two then turn off the heat.

6. Stir in cocoa powder and mix until well incorporated.

7. Add wings to the hot sauce mixture and mix until every wing is coated with the sauce.

8. Transfer in a serving dish and serve with ranch dressing and slices of celery.

Pork Chops with Spices and Cocoa Powder

Ughhh...woke up tired and sleepy this morning after only 4 hours of sleep . I came home a little past eleven last night after going to the valley to watch Pacquiao-Bradley fight...Bradley won which was a little mind-boggling considering that Pacquiao, to many, dominated the fight...but, Oh well...doesn't really affect me much since I am neither a boxing fan nor watch Pacquiao fights on a regular basis. I took a little detour last night coming home since I missed my freeway exit (I-170) and continued on to I-5. Ha! I guess my sense of direction isn't all that bad since I was able to get home without the aid of a GPS...iPhone GPS is good but only if you have a passenger who is navigating but when you're driving alone, it is not a nifty device since it is way too small to read while driving (especially at night). Nonetheless, I made it home without any problem....hehehe...After I got home, I spent the next five hours proofreading and revising s group paper for school. Aigoo, that wasn't fun especially when all I really wanted was to go to sleep. At least that is out of the way and submitted to the professor.
 
Okay, enough rambling and on to the business at hand...hehehe.

This recipe is from a Good Housekeeping cookbook from the Philippines that my sister-in-law gave me on their recent visit.  I have to say that this cookbook has a lot of great recipes which I cannot wait to try.  When I quickly browsed through the cookbook, it looks like some were adapted to the Filipino palate but maybe I was reading it all wrong...will have to go back and read it in detail when I have a chance.

This particular dish is a delight.  Due to the addition of a lot of spices, the resulting dish tasted like a flavor explosion in my mouth.  It is spicy, sweet, savory, and smoky all at the same time.  Don't the not-so-pretty appearance fool you because it taste better than it looks.  The preparation is a breeze as well.  It is a combination of quick-frying and baking.  assembling and mixing the spices and rubbing will probably take you less than 10 minutes (only because there is so much measurement involved) them quick fry for 2-3 minutes each side and then bake for 10 minutes.  All-in-all, it might take you less than 30 minutes from start to finish.
 

Ingredients:

4 pieces pork chops (bone in)
cooking oil

Spice rub:

2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 Tbsp Italian seasoning
2 tsp onion powder
1 1/2 tsp cocoa powder (unsweetened)
1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 ground cumin
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat oven to 305F

2. Combine spice rub mixture in a bowl.  Mix well

3. Coat the pork chops (on both sides) with the spice rub mixture.

4. Heat non-stick pan over medium heat.  Add oil and pan-fry pork chops for 3-5 minutes on each side.

5. Transfer pork chops to a baking dish and bake for 10 minutes or until cooked through.

6. Serve immediately.

Chocolate Cake Truffles

This is such an easy recipe which was born as a result of me making chocolate cake for hubby's birthday. I had leftover ganache and the top of the cake layers that I trimmed off to make it flat and even so they sit on top of each other. Making this truffle was so much fun as it feltlike playing with play-doh because you have to squish ingredients together to form the balls. It has been a long time simce I made cake-based truffle that I have honestly forgotten how easy and fun they were to make, Be warned though as they will be messy, sticky, and gooey. It was a good thing that I planned ahead and lined my table with newspaper to catch any of the crumbs that falls off the bowl as well as any ganache that dripped. The formed balls has to be frozen for a little bit though to help form them together but that didn't take very long, maybe around 15 minutes...just long enough to help it harden a little then off to an even messier task of coating it with ganache...oh, what a joy it was...hahaha...BY the way, I used disposable kitchen gloves when I was forming the balls together to prevent it from sticking to my hand so the balls weren't as perfect as it would have been if I used bare hand.



Ingredients:

2 cups Chocolate Cake, broken into crumbs (recipe here)
1/2 package of Cream cheese, softened
Chocolate gganache: recipe here

1. Mix chocolate cake crumbs with softened cream cheese and mix well. (NOTE: hand mixing it works best for me, I use disposable kitchen gloves because this could get sticky and messy)
2. Take a small piece and shape it into a ball. Alternatively, you can use a melo baller to make even rounds.
3. Once you have finished making the ball, refrigerate it until it firms up slightly (about 15 minutes or so)


4. Once they have harden slightly, remove them from the refrigerator and coat with the ganache. To make it easier to coat these, use fork to dip them in the ganache and let the excess drip through the fork tines.
5. Refrigerate again to help ganache to harden and form a shell around the chocolate cake balls. Serve when ready.