This particular chicken lollipop recipe is a Indo-Chinese favourite appetizer where frenched chicken wings are marinated, baked (or fried) until crisp and tossed with a sticky sweet and hot sauce (harrissa honey sauce). Simply put, chicken lollipops are the fried chicken wings but with a more distinct look and spicy flavour.
The name “chicken lollipop” is referring to how the chicken wings look after trimming. To achieve the lollipop appearance, the meat on the chicken wing is cut loose from the bone end and pushed down, a culinary technique known as “frenching.”
The recipe is actually very simple. The hardest part of the recipe is to form the chicken lollipops from chicken wings. If you plan to make a huge batch for a crowd, fry the chicken lollipops and make the sauce in advance. Then you can re-crisp the wings at a high temperature for a couple of minutes, re-heat the sauce, and toss to coat just before serving.
Here is a video on how to cut lollipops from the wings that I found on youtube.
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- Divide the chicken wing into 3 parts (drumette, winglet and wingtip) by slicing through the joints. Save the wingtip for other uses.
- French the drumette. Holding the drumette (which looks like a chicken drumstick) by the meaty end, use a small, sharp knife to cut around the thin end of the drummette so the meat and skin are released from the bone. Push the meat down towards the fat end to create a lollipop.
- French the winglet / flat. For the winglet, which contains two bones, cut the joint where the bones meet. Trim a small section of the meat from the circumference of that area to expose the bones. Remove one of the bones and push the meat to the end of the remaining bone to form a lollipop.
- Transfer the prepared wings to a medium bowl. Add in ground cumin, coriander, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper. Rub the spice mixture into the wing pieces until there is no powder left in the bottom of your bowl. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, up to overnight.
- Preheat your oven to 200C/400F and brush a baking tray with some olive oil. Arrange the chicken wings on the tray and bake in the middle of the oven for 35 minutes or until the chicken is nicely browned and slightly charred, and completely cooked through.
- Bring sauce ingredients slowly to a simmer in a saucepan on the stovetop while your wings are baking. When the sauce starts to bubble, turn off the heat and set aside for 5 minutes. The sauce will thickens up after cooling a bit. Toss the wings in the sauce until thoroughly coated. Serve on a bed of fresh herbs and garnished with pomegranate seeds and chopped spring onions if desired.