Air fried har cheong gai (prawn paste chicken)

I love prawn paste chicken but fried HCG isn't healthy. I've tried multiple recipes and methods including oven frying with different marinades, as well as different coatings i.e., baking soda coating and panko. All these recipes used a dry, usually flour, coating and then baking but nothing worked well. They also left dry bits of flour that was turned claggy. I haven't come across the best marinade that isn't too salty.

Based on these experiences, I decided to try my own recipe but this time, use a batter rather than dry coating. This involves mixing egg yolk and corn starch into the marinade rather than coating the chicken, as adapted from air fried curry chicken by Miki. She has several baked prawn paste chicken recipes but based on my past experiments, they're unlikely to be what I'm looking for.

I only managed to capture a picture of the drumlets as I had finished eating the mid wings before I remembered!

Ingredients

Marinade

1.2kg wings

½ tsp oyster sauce

1½ tbsp Lee Kum Kee prawn paste

2 tbsp shaoxing wine

2 tsp corn flour

dash of pepper

½ tsp sugar

Batter

2 -3 tbsp corn flour

2 egg yolks

Method

1. Cut up the wings into drumlets and mid wings. Discard the wing tips. I used to leave them with the mid wings but it made it hard to fit everything into the air fryer.

2. Mix marinade ingredients. Allow to marinade for at least 4 hours but up to 6 hours max.

3. Preheat the air fryer to 200 deg C. Line the air fryer tray with foil then top off with baking parchment. I have tried pure foil before and it just sticks even after oiling and doesn't help with the crispiness.

4. Place wings on a lined air fryer basket. Lightly spritz with oil. Place meat side up. Do not spritz. Cook the mid wings and drumlets separately - 10 to 12 minutes for mid wings and 12 -13 minutes for drumlets, remembering to turn halfway. When turning halfway, spritz BEFORE turning that side over so that the batter doesn't stick onto the parchment or foil. Do not spritz on the top side.

Recipe feedback

- The taste was correct! I cooked the wings and drumlets separately, which meant the drumlets were left to marinade overnight in the fridge. The drumlets became slightly too salty the next day. Next time, I cannot marinade more than 6 hours.

- The yolk and corn starch yielded a very crispy batter but unfortunately, kept sloughing off the chicken skin. It pooled on the baking parchment (see picture). I wonder about spritzing with oil, does this make the surface too wet and prevent the fat in the skin from rendering and thus turning crispy?

- Next time I will try: Remove from the marinade (the raw chicken releases a lot of liquid, no doubt due to the salt content of the prawn paste too!) and wipe off excess with kitchen paper. Dredge lightly in corn starch. In a separate bowl, mix egg yolk and corn starch into a batter. Coat the dredged chicken in the cornstarch. Place meat side up on a lined tray. Halfway through, spray the chicken BEFORE turning but do not spritz the topside with oil as that seems to prevent the skin and batter from drying out and turning crispy.