Chicken Feet Experiment

[Dejah]

I haven't made these for a long time, but a friend just gave me 10 lbs of cleaned plump chicken feet.

Cantonese dim sum style Golden Phoenix Palms is not easy to come by in our small city. I love these and decided I needed to make a pile and have ready in the freezer for a treat anytime!

The set up for deep frying outside. Once brown and crispy, the feet were tossed into a pot of ice water.

Sizzling in the wok of hot oil. I had the flame on high. There was a lot of splattering, but I didn't care - nothing to clean up in the house and I stayed far away after I first put them in:

The feet were simmered for 1.5 hours

The simmered feet were drained, cooled then coated with a marinade to sit overnight.

Steamed for 15 minutes and ready to enjoy!

[Paul Bacino]

Curious..I've done chicken feet.

You fryed till golden, put in an ice bath, then brought that up to simmer.. Not sure of your procedure?

You had aromatics in the simmer?

Spicy Black Bean is what I did..

Question? You ever eat the soft bones, or do you just mouth around them?

Cheers. PB

[jsager01]

Those chicken feet look great and of professional or restaurant quality.

The only comment i can make, and maybe redundant as you may have already been doing it, is that i denature the skin, something like having to denature the skin in siu yuk, with salt, vodka, etc; and also in Malaysian/Singaporean version of Hainanese Chicken. The intent is to increase the thickness and texture of the skin, and especially in chicken feet, the skin is what its all about, and yes, there maybe some tendons in there also, but its the skin and the added spices/aromatics are what its all about.

What i do is that i wash the feet in free flowing water, cut off the ‘ toes’, then sprinkle them liberally with salt, whatever salt i have on hand. Depending on what else i have to do, i let them brine/marinate, and have known to let them marinate overnite, as i forgot. Then i blanch them, and then coat with honey or maltose, and let it dry as much as i can, ie air dry or preferably dry in the fridge, overnite or preferably for 1 or 2 days. Then dump them into as hot a deep fryer as i can get, and run as far away as i can ). Once they are browned, i scoop them up and dump into ice cold water.

That’s how i denature or prep the feet before the simmering/braising/steaming and addition of flavors, ie the spices and aromatics.

What i have found when i just deep fry them, without the above prep, is that the skin is just a thin film, and the aromatics /spices/stock become all important, as there is little left of the feet. IMO the perfect chicken feet is one that is plum-by and can hold the flavors within itself. Not sure if that makes any sense to anyone else

Edited October 31, 2013 by heidih
Increased font size for ease of reading (log)

[Dejah]

Curious..I've done chicken feet.

You fryed till golden, put in an ice bath, then brought that up to simmer.. Not sure of your procedure?

You had aromatics in the simmer?

Spicy Black Bean is what I did..

Question? You ever eat the soft bones, or do you just mouth around them?

Cheers. PB

Paul: The ice bath makes the feet puff up, wrinkled and bloated. I think the contrast in temperature "pulls" the skin and tendon away from the bone?

I drained the feet from the ice water, then simmered them in a pot of fresh water with star anise and ginger. That's all the recipe called for, but I added Thai chili peppers, a couple tbsp soy sauce, and some whole fermented black beans. I really wanted the flavour to go thru' the feet.

Then the feet were drained and covered with a marinade for overnight. They were spicy, garlicky, black bean saucy, but not as much chew as I would have liked.

The smaller bones were quite edible, but I generally spit them out - part of the fun!

[Dejah]

jsager01: Thanks for the suggestion on "denature". I will try that next time.

Could find maltose in any of our stores, so I sprinkled sugar on them, as one recipe suggested. The next batch - which won't be for some time, will be with maltose. I like your process and will definitely try it for comparison.

[YiReservation]

jsager01: Thanks for the suggestion on "denature". I will try that next time.

Could find maltose in any of our stores, so I sprinkled sugar on them, as one recipe suggested. The next batch - which won't be for some time, will be with maltose. I like your process and will definitely try it for comparison.

Hi Dejah, I've made this with honey before and it came out pretty good. Just a suggestion if you still can't find maltose in your local stores. Good luck!

[loki]

Maltose is available at homebrew supply stores. I would use dry malt, though I think malt extract (It's sort of like honey) could also work. Look for the pale kind, not the dark (unless you really want a caramel flavor).