Japanese Curry Wings
There was point in my life when I was that guy who always ordered chicken teriyaki at Japanese restaurants. It wasn't until a close friend of mine moved to New York and took me out for a big plate of Japanese curry did the cuisine pique my interest more and I began to branch out. I'm a much different eater today than I was back then, but one thing has remained consistent—I still really love Japanese curry. So much so that in the earliest days of the pandemic it become one of the first things I decided to learn how to make from scratch. I've made the standard thick, stew-like dish so many times by now that I've been wondering what else could I use Japanese curry powder for and it turns out wings is a good answer.
When I say I learned how to make it from scratch, I mean starting with making my own curry powder. I used this Serious Eats recipe as my initial guide and have tinkered with the recipe just slightly since then. The base curry powder isn't all that different from a similar wing recipe I did years ago, but the little variations in amounts and ingredients make a difference in giving the seasoning mixture a distinct taste.
The curry powder recipe here is purposefully made to allow for leftovers because it's nice to have this stuff laying around the house for future cooking efforts. I probably used a little less than half of the curry powder for the wings, which started with combining two tablespoons of it with baking powder and salt.
That became the seasoning that coated the wings. The baking powder helps create a texture to the wings that can hold sauce and enhance crispiness, but the most important part of the process of getting crackling wings on the grill is to air dry them on a wire rack in the fridge for at least eight hours. Removing surface moisture lets the skins crisp up faster during cooking, rendering the final product surprisingly crunchy for something that's grilled and not fried.
What really separates Japanese curry from others is when the spice mixture is turned into a sauce. This is usually done first by creating a roux which then is used to thicken stock that is simmered with additional sweeteners. I didn't want that type of stew-like sauce for wings though, so to get some of the missing flavors into the final wings I created a sauce that was comprised of butter, garlic, ginger, sugar, and more of the curry powder.
When it came time to grill the wings, I created a two-zone fire where all of the coals were set on one side of the charcoal grate. The wings then went on the cool side of the grill. They then cooked over indirect heat, covered, until well crisped, which clocked in at the standard 45 minute mark that I've become accustomed to.
At this point the wings tasted much like my previous curry wings recipe, they only got a more Japanese-like flavor when I tossed them with that rich and semi-sweet butter mixture.
This gave the final wings that rich, lightly sweet, but still highly complex taste I was used to. The strong earthy base of the curry powder was upfront, but also tempered by the butter and sugar a bit, while the garlic and ginger added their marks that designated the wings well to their multiple roots. As much as I loved these wings, and they were mighty tasty, my favorite outcome may just be that I still have enough curry powder left to make a roux that will go one to make multiple Japanese curry rice dishes this winter.
