Take one of the chicken wings and place it on a secure cutting board. Using a sharp knife, carefully cut the wing into three pieces – slicing at the joints. Discard the pointy tips of the wings.
10 whole chicken wings
Take the middle piece of the wing and carefully cut the meat around the bone at the thickest end. You don’t want to cut any meat off, you just want to detach it from the bone at one end.
Push the chicken flesh down the two bones, using your fingers until the meat is pushed down to the end. It takes a little bit of effort, and you may need to carefully use your knife a couple of times to detach any meat you can’t push down.
Once the meat has been pushed down the two bones, the smaller bone can be removed. Simply pull and twist the smaller bone and it will come free.
Take the larger piece of the chicken wing you cut earlier and cut the chicken away from the bone – this time at the thin end. Push the chicken flesh down using your fingers until the meat is pushed down to the end.
Repeat with the remaining wings. You should have 20 chicken lollipops altogether.
Preheat the oven to its lowest setting – this is for keeping the wings warm, as you’ll need to cook in two batches)
Heat the oil over a medium heat in a large, thick-based pan that is suitable for deep frying, until it reaches 175C/350F. Alternatively, you can use a deep-fat fryer.
oil for deep frying
While the oil is heating, mix the cornflour, baking powder, garlic salt, pepper, and paprika together in a large bowl.
60 g (1/2 cup) cornflour (cornstarch in USA), 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp garlic salt, 1/2 tsp ground black pepper, ½ tsp paprika
Place the chicken wings in the bowl and toss to coat them evenly in the coating. Remove the wings from the bowl and place on a plate.
Add the flour, rice vinegar, and water to the remaining cornflour that’s left in the bowl and mix, using a balloon whisk until combined. This gives us the second coating for the chicken.
60 g (1/2 cup) plain (all-purpose) flour, 1 tbsp Chinese rice vinegar, 120 ml (1/2 cup) cold water
Dip a chicken wing in the wet batter and turn to coat. Allow any excess batter to drip off and carefully add to the hot oil to deep fry.
Repeat with the remaining wings. You should be able to cook up to 10 chicken wings at a time if your pan is large enough.
Cook for 6-8 minutes, moving the chicken around in the pan a couple of times to prevent it sticking together.
Once cooked, remove the chicken from the oil and place on a baking tray and place in the oven to keep warm, while you cook the second batch.
Repeat with the remaining wings.
Whilst the chicken lollipops are cooking, make the sauce by adding all of the sauce ingredients, to a small saucepan.
Stir together and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and allow to bubble gently for 2 minutes, then turn off the heat.
Place the chicken lollipops on a tray or plate. If you like, you can wrap the very ends of the bones in a little foil.
Serve the chicken lollipops with the sauce and garnish with a sprinkling of chopped spring onions (scallions).
3 spring onions (scallions)
Notes
Can I air fry instead of deep frying?You won't get the quite the same crispness and golden colour, but you can air fry the lollipops and they'll still be pretty crispy. If you want to air fry the lollipops, only coat in the dry coating (don't add the plain (all-purpose) flour, rice vinegar and water). Once the lollipops are coated in the cornflour coating, spray them liberally with spray oil, then air fry them (stand them up if you can) at 200C/400F for 20-25 minutes, until completely cooked through. Be sure to move the wings around the air fryer basket a couple of times during cooking.Other sauces for dipping:
Note on nutritional information:Nutritional information is approximate, per chicken lollipop - not including the sauce. I've estimate that approx. 5ml (1 teaspoon) of oil is absorbed for each lollipop during the frying process. This is just an educated guess.The sauce works out to be approx 460-500 calories for the whole thing.