I think that’s still a difference between deep frying and baking or air frying when it comes to certain kinds of food, especially those that needs to be coated with some kind of batter. But due to health consciousness, most of us prefer to “deep fried” our stuffs using the oven or air fryer now. Which is better too, since that’s lesser cleaning up to be done. In general, I find that the oven baked prawn paste chicken, has a crisp that needs to be consumed quite immediately after baking. Whereas if you were to use hot oil to deep fried them, the crisp stays for longer even after the food has cooled down.
I was thinking it could be due to the fact that when you deep fried the foods, the oil will penetrate right into the food, absorbing all the moisture, hence able to get a clear and crispy batter whilst on the other hand, if you were to air fried or bake them, the air circulates around the food but a small amount of residual moisture still stay. Hence, we would not be able to get a crisp that lasts longer as the bit of moisture eventually will seep through after the food has cooled. Make sense ? Just my 2-cents worth though.
Nevertheless, in comparison to health benefits and time consumption, it’s still more worthwhile to bake or air fried these chicken as they are a definite healthier choice.
Actually these prawn paste chicken mid-joints were quite evenly browned when they were out from the oven. But due to the reflection or lightning (I presume), not sure why though, they appear quite differently in colours under these pictures. Hahaha !
And this recipe is so freaking simple that you only need 4 ingredients to play along.
*I used fresh chicken mid-joints and Dancing Chef Prawn Paste sauce purchased via PurelyFresh, the online groceries store in Singapore ! Use any prawn paste sauce that you think is the best then ! I haven’t tried all yet so can’t really give a good comparison. :)
Enjoy !!
- 8-9 pcs of chicken mid-joints/wings
- 4 tbsp prawn paste sauce (I used Dancing Chef in packet form)
- 2 tsp sugar
- 60g self-raising flour
- some olive oil
- Marinate the chicken mid-joints or wings with the prawn paste sauce and sugar and leave them to chill in the fridge overnight.
- Coat the chicken with the self raising flour as evenly as possible. Place them on a rack with a plate or tray beneath it to catch the excess flour and to allow the moisture to dry up by placing them back into the fridge for another 1-2 hours.
- Remove the chicken mid-joints/wings from the fridge and brush a layer of olive oil on one side of the chicken. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 200 degrees C for 10 minute (with fan mode on).
- Remove the tray of chicken mind-joints/wings and turn them over the other side. Brush the other side with more olive oil and place them back into the oven to continue baking at 200 degrees C for another 15 minutes till the skin turns crispy. Remove and serve hot.
