Panang Wings
When I first tried out the idea to use a Thai curry paste as the base for a wing sauce, I knew I was on to something. Those wings that were coated with primarily red curry paste had am amazingly complex flavor, and while I was immensely pleased with them, I knew I could do at least a little bit better. So when I decided to give it another go, I opted to swap out the more common red curry paste for my preferred panang paste, tinkered with the sauce mix-ins a bit, and the result was everything I was hoping it would be.
Panang curry paste utilizes much of the same ingredients as a red curry paste, but the additions of multiple spices and peanuts transforms it into something really unique. Those spices of nutmeg, coriander seeds, and cumin, impart an earthy and toasty flavor that's further enhanced by roasted peanuts. All of these do render the final paste a little less spicy than a red curry paste, but what's lost in heat is certainly made up for in flavor.
When I took up learning Thai cooking, I was taught that when making pastes, nothing will render quite the same flavor and texture as using a mortar and pestle, so that's all I've ever done. If I didn't own one though, I wouldn't hesitate to make this recipe in a food processor, which significantly cuts down the effort. When using a mortar and pestle though, it does take some time, and a lot of pounding, to work everything into a fine paste—something that I do one ingredient at a time.
For the overall wing process, I kept with my tried and true method. It started with patting the wings dry with paper towels, then applying a seasoning mixture of salt, Thai toasted chili powder, light brown sugar, and baking powder. That last ingredient aids in forming a textured skin that allows sauce to adhere well, while getting the skin crackling crisp is mostly thanks to the overnight stint these wings spent in the fridge sitting on a wire rack, allowing the exterior to dry out and then more quickly brown and crisp during cooking.
Now if you look at this wing sauce and the red curry one side-by-side, they look pretty similar, but the minor changes made enough difference in my mind to make this the superior recipe. First, I cut back the butter and upped the amount of curry paste, allowing the panang flavor to be stronger. Then swapping coconut milk for coconut cream provided the desired creaminess, but with a thicker consistency that made this sauce coat the wings more effectively. Finally, adding both tamarind concentrate and fish sauce created an even more complex and savory flavor that was certainly noticeable.
Over indirect heat with the grill running at about 450°F, these wings cooked up in the 45 minutes that I've become accustomed to now that I have over 50 wing recipes under my belt. The little bit of sugar in the seasoning meant that these developed really attractive browning during that time, which helped enhance the appearance after the sauce was applied too.
This had to be one of my favorite sauces to actively coat the wings in because when it was introduced to the very hot chicken, the aroma of everything that went into that paste got released. Notes of galangal, lemongrass, peppers, garlic, spices, and more filled my nostrils and got my mouth watering.
And this is one case where taste delivered even more than aroma. There was so much going on in the flavor of these wings, it was insane. The multilayered panang paste was in the forefront and while I could pick out individual ingredients here and there, everything melded together in the complex, yet cohesive, manner that makes Thai cuisine my favorite. There was a good heat, but it wasn't so heavy handed that just about anyone could partake in these wings. For those previous red curry wings, I was envisioning something hotter than what I got, but for these panang wings, all the spices and their levels were hitting how I wanted. There are more Thai curry pastes that I can try out on wings in the same manner, and I'll probably do that sometime in the future, but I bet that with each new recipe, I'll probably just wish I had made these panang wings again because, for my taste buds, I couldn't imagine any others being better.
