[0:00] Now, I don't want to say that every single 
Chinese person hates buffalo wings. I mean, sixth  
[0:05] of humanity. I'm sure you could find somebody 
somewhere. But in a decade and a half of living  
[0:11] here in China, every single Chinese friend that 
I tried to introduce them to… hasn't been a fan.  
[0:17] Now, that's of course just my personal experience, 
but maybe a little bit more objectively,  
[0:23] you can definitely get Western food here in 
China. I mean, burgers, hot dogs, fried chicken,  
[0:27] French fries, pizza, even bagels… kind of. But 
buffalo wings, outside of an expat haunch or two…  
[0:36] nada. Which, like, I don't know, kind of sucks, 
right? Like, I don't know about you, but when I  
[0:42] was in high school, college, my absolute favorite 
food in the world was buffalo wings. They were for  
[0:48] me a little like what Niuza - Cantonese street 
beef shops - were for Steph. Coming from a very  
[0:55] white bread American home cooking background and 
a white… rice? Cantonese home cooking background,  
[1:02] those two respective dishes were our first 
introduction to, well, flavor. Like for me,  
[1:09] back when I was 17, me and my buddies, we would 
kind of get together for these makeshift wing  
[1:13] eating contests. Your mouth on fire, your hands 
are sloppy… but the blue cheese, the butter,  
[1:20] it's just… I don't know. Good memories. So, 
naturally over the years, I've tried to introduce  
[1:27] my Chinese friends to the same experience. 
And try as I might, basically to a man, none  
[1:34] of them have ever actually been into it. And if 
I try to grill them down a little bit as to why,  
[1:41] also basically to a man, the response is that it's 
just too sour. And so, I've thought about this  
[1:48] problem a lot over the years, maybe a little bit 
too much. And after all this time, I think I might  
[1:54] have been able to finally figure it out. Now, 
it's pained me to admit it, but I think if you  
[1:59] look inside yourself, you'll find it to be true, 
too. And that is the very base of a buffalo sauce.  
[2:06] The canonical hot sauce for an authentically 
correct buffalo, Frank's Red Hot, is completely  
[2:13] fucking garbage. Now, if you're anything like me, 
you're going to want to resist this information,  
[2:19] but I want you to take a bottle of Frank’s. I 
want you to open it. I want you to take a sniff  
[2:25] and compare it against a Crystal or a Valentina 
or even Tabasco. Like, this shit here is vinegar.  
[2:34] It tastes like vinegar essence. The fragrance 
is basically non-existent. It doesn't have a  
[2:39] good chili flavor, and it's not even spicy. This 
here is basically some white vinegar that somebody  
[2:46] lightly whispered the words “chili pepper” 
over and called in the rest of the day. Now,  
[2:55] maybe Frank's used to be better. Maybe this is 
another one of those cases of the MBA crowd taking  
[3:01] an American food product, running it straight into 
the ground, and hoping that nobody noticed. But in  
[3:07] this specific case, I don't think that there's 
any conspiracy needed. I've got a different  
[3:11] hypothesis. So, cut back to me back when I was 
17. Back then, white person crunchy taco night was  
[3:20] my idea of some wild flavors. So, predictably, 
my spice tolerance, it was really quite low.  
[3:28] And so, I think if you're the type of person 
that if you just had a teaspoon of this straight,  
[3:37] your predominant feeling is “that is a spicy 
meatball”. Buffalo is going to taste balanced  
[3:45] to you… because the vinegar, it cuts the 
heat. The garlic cuts the heat. The blue  
[3:51] cheese dressing will definitely cut the heat, but 
especially, especially the butter cuts the heat.  
[3:59] The end result is a product that - in Buffalo's 
defense - is actually one of the perfect gateway  
[4:05] spicy foods. But now I want you to picture the 
average Chinese spicy food enthusiast. Like  
[4:13] this here functionally is your local bar. When 
you're at the Shaokao, you're definitely going  
[4:19] to be ordering a fistful of the beef chili bombs. 
When you have some white rice, you're dumping Lao  
[4:24] Gan Ma on, not because it's actually spicy, 
just so that you can actually feel something.  
[4:29] If your mouth has already adjusted to 
Sichuan hot pot te-ma te-la levels of spicy,  
[4:37] you're going to taste Frank’s and it's going to 
taste like vinegar. It doesn't matter how much  
[4:42] extra cayenne pepper your foreigner friend 
added. Even compared to a simple malatang  
[4:47] buffalo wings, they're not going to be spicy 
and so they're not going to taste balanced.  
[4:54] So in this video, what I decided to do 
was try to rebuild a new better buffalo  
[5:00] wing from first principles. So just to make 
sure that we are all on the same page here,  
[5:06] I think a buffalo sauce, it should be spicy just 
to the point of challenging, maybe getting past  
[5:14] challenging at around wing four or so. The sauce 
itself, it should be definitely quite buttery.  
[5:20] It should have a slight tang and a mild hit 
of garlic to it. I also don't want any weird  
[5:28] ingredients in the sauce like ketchup or god 
forbid blue cheese - that belongs in the dip.  
[5:35] But also at the same time, for the purpose 
of this exercise, I don't want to cheat and  
[5:41] use anything that tastes overly “Chinese” either. 
So that's the goal. I want an authentic tasting  
[5:49] but better buffalo wing that can 
finally appeal to the Chinese palette.  
[5:55] So, right, basics. Now, Franks is, of course, 
an American-style fermented hot sauce.  
[6:03] Now, before I could easily get Frank's here, I 
still remember in my love of everything Buffalo,  
[6:09] frantically searching for recipes online 
on how to ferment chilis for hot sauce  
[6:14] so that I could recreate it here in China, which 
was a project that I never ended up doing because…  
[6:20] lazy. But a little bit ago, I was at the 
market and I was realizing that 20s me was  
[6:26] really being pretty stupid. Because here in China, 
we can get some fantastic quality lacto-fermented  
[6:34] chili peppers, some of which can really get quite 
spicy - definitely spicier than Frank's. So, if  
[6:40] you are in the market of following along at home, 
this here is a variety of pickled chili that's  
[6:47] actually pretty available at Chinese supermarkets 
in the West as well. They're called millet chilis,  
[6:53] xiaomila. And if you ate one of these straight, 
it would be really quite uncomfortable,  
[6:58] which is what we want because remember, the 
remainder of our buffalo sauce is going to be a  
[7:03] conspiracy to balance that heat. So, what we'll do 
is we'll blend 85g of those together with a clove  
[7:10] or two of garlic together with a 1/3 of a cup 
of water. Then, we'll pass that through a fine  
[7:15] mesh sieve. And then with that, this is going 
to be our hot sauce base. No franks required.  
[7:24] But that brings me to pain point number two, which 
is the fundamental technique of how buffalo sauce  
[7:32] is made. Now, for the unaware, you make a buffalo 
sauce by taking hot sauce and then using a French  
[7:38] technique called mounting with butter. It's kind 
of the same idea as something like a beurre blanc.  
[7:44] You take your sauce and then you whisk cubes of 
cold butter in the thick butter. it blends in and  
[7:50] then you're left with a thick, rich sauce. But I 
think for hot wings, there's a couple of problems  
[7:56] with this approach. The first one is that this 
here, this is not that stable of a concoction.  
[8:03] Like I want to toss wings in a sauce while 
they're still piping hot from deep frying. And  
[8:09] when I do that with this kind of butter-mounted 
sauce, it's at a high risk of breaking on me.  
[8:16] Now, from what I can tell, the OG Buffalo sauce, 
it actually used margarine instead of butter.  
[8:22] And these days at sports bars and the like, 
often times people work off of this product.  
[8:27] Both of which have stabilizers to thicken. Which 
then… brings me to the pain point number two.  
[8:34] I want a thick sauce that actually really coats 
to my wings. I don't really like those thin  
[8:41] hot sauces. Like, at that point, I'd rather 
just dip the thing and keep the crispiness.  
[8:46] But to get to the thickness that I want by 
mounting it with butter, I usually end up  
[8:51] needing to go half-half, which *is* one of 
the canonical ratios for a buffalo sauce.  
[8:57] But by that point, the sauce, it ends up losing 
much of the spiciness that we've worked so hard  
[9:03] for. And importantly, also for the Chinese 
palette, is also really really rich. Like  
[9:10] I don't know if you've ever actually let homemade 
buffalo sauce sit out and get cold for a while?  
[9:16] The stuff it ends up almost gross. Like, you 
could take it and literally spread it on toast.  
[9:22] So I was thinking about this problem for a while 
and… I couldn't think of anything overly elegant.  
[9:29] So in the end, I'm going to do what I know 
how to do which is stir frying up a sauce.  
[9:36] Now I'll be adding a bunch of butter, of course, 
these are buffalo wings - fear not the butter.  
[9:42] But I'm also going to be thickening with starch, 
specifically a potato starch in the Chinese style,  
[9:48] so that the final product can actually hold. So, 
buffalo flavors, saucy Chinese stir fry technique.  
[9:56] So, here we've got 15 wings. And of course, the 
authentic move for an American-style hot wing  
[10:03] is definitely to fry them naked. No marinade, 
no coating, no nothing. But for me, I'm uh  
[10:11] I'm not going to do that. I'm going to be taking 
a little bit of inspiration from an old school  
[10:17] Yunan dish called Sheng Zha Ji or ‘directly fried 
chicken’, which is marinated and does have a light  
[10:25] crispy coating. I know you might be skeptical. 
Just stay with me. I promise that it does work.  
[10:30] So then to marinate to my wings, I'll just 
toss in a teaspoon of salt, half teaspoon  
[10:36] chicken bouillon powder, half tablespoon of a 
red fragrant chili powder, a spicy chili powder,  
[10:41] soy sauce, bourbon, and Tabasco together with a 
1/4 teaspoon each white pepper and garlic powder.  
[10:47] Mix that well and then let that marinate in 
the fridge for at least a couple of hours.  
[10:52] Then, right before deep frying, we'll whisk one 
egg white and then mix that in with a slurry of  
[10:58] just 10 grams each of water and cornstarch. And 
then mix that super super well with the wings.  
[11:05] Then we'll get a wok of oil up to about 120 
Celsius. Drop in the wings, quick jostle,  
[11:11] and let the coating form for about 1 minute. Then 
remove that. Get your oil up to about 175 and then  
[11:19] drop the wings in again. Fry those for about 
4 minutes or so or until everything's totally  
[11:25] cooked and the wings are good and crispy… and 
then take those out to drain. Now for our sauce.  
[11:33] Together with our makeshift hot sauce from before, 
we'll toss in enough chicken stock or water (or  
[11:38] combination) to get to one cup worth of liquid. 
And also toss in a half tablespoon each milk  
[11:44] powder and Tabasco, a teaspoon each sugar and rice 
vinegar, a 1/4 teaspoon each white pepper and MSG,  
[11:51] a half teaspoon chicken bouillon powder, and an 
1/8 teaspoon of garlic powder. Mix that well,  
[11:57] and then we're ready to fry. But one last final 
thing before we stir fry. Everything up to now,  
[12:06] it was all pretty tasty. I liked it. Steph liked 
it. But I still did want it a little bit spicier.  
[12:13] So what I decided to do - and this is 
completely optional - is amp things up with  
[12:19] a little bit of the spiciest chili pepper 
that the nation state of China has to offer.  
[12:25] And that is a little bit of Yunnan’s very 
own Shuan Shuan La. So this thing here,  
[12:31] uh, what it is is it's a ghost pepper. It comes 
from Dehong near the Myanmar border. Apocryphally,  
[12:40] one of the most traditional uses for the thing was 
to keep elephants away from your vegetable fields?  
[12:47] But the culinary use there is also really quite 
interesting. So it's called Shuan Shuan La  
[12:52] because it's used for dips. The character Shuan in 
Chinese, it means ‘dip’ or uh ‘swish’ maybe? And  
[13:00] so this thing, it's literally called swish swish 
spicy because what you do is you'll take your dip,  
[13:07] you'll take your ghost pepper, and you'll just 
swish swish. And then that's already enough for  
[13:13] spicy. So we'll just toss a half a ghost pepper in 
here just for as long as it takes for everything  
[13:20] to get started with the stir fry. Then we're going 
to take it out because I'm not a masochist...  
[13:26] but if you have a higher spice tolerance 
than I do, definitely you can leave it in.  
[13:31] So to our wok, we'll first toss in 2 tbsp of 
butter and then let that foam over a low flame.  
[13:38] Then go in with one finely minced clove of garlic. 
And then once that's fragrant, we'll toss in  
[13:43] three more pickled spicy chilies for the sake of 
good-looking and half teaspoon of a spicy chili  
[13:50] powder. Now up the flame to high. Give it all a 
quick mix, then pour a tablespoon of bourbon over  
[13:55] the spatula and around the side of the walk. Quick 
mix, sauce in. And once that's at a light boil,  
[14:01] swap the flame down to low and drizzle in a slurry 
of about 2 tsp of starch mixed with an equal  
[14:07] amount of water. Once that's thickened to about 
this kind of consistency, we'll then shut off  
[14:12] the heat and mount things with cold cold butter 
bit by bit to get to our desired buttery-ness,  
[14:20] which was for us 2.5 more tablespoons. Then piping 
hot deep fried wings in. Give that all a really  
[14:27] good mix… then transfer the saucy wings over to 
a plate and the excess buffalo over to a bowl.  
[14:34] And… ‘excess buffalo’ because looking at 
this dish during testing, for some reason,  
[14:42] a little mote of my brain kept on 
thinking of… Singaporean chili crab.  
[14:47] Now, I'm really not sure why, the dishes really 
don't have much in common with each other. But  
[14:53] I did decide to serve this alongside some 
deep fried mantous just like in Singapore,  
[14:59] which honestly is a fantastic combination - might 
actually be the best idea of this entire exercise.  
[15:07] But besides that, of course, we'll also have the 
mandatory side of celery, albeit peeled to get  
[15:12] it stringless in the Cantonese style. And also 
a side that I personally like, which are some  
[15:16] fresh mild chilies. Then we'll serve that all 
with some blue cheese dressing, of course. And  
[15:22] you should definitely buy yours, but here in Yuxi, 
I can't go to the supermarket and buy some. So,  
[15:28] I just whipped together a bog standard 35 grams 
of blue cheese, one cube of white fermented tofu,  
[15:34] 75g of plain yogurt, 20 grams of a non-Asian 
mayonnaise, a teaspoon of sugar, and 1/4 teaspoon  
[15:41] each salt, MSG, and rice vinegar. Sprinkle 
of minced celery leaf… and with that, these  
[15:48] are my American-style buffalo wings, remixified 
for the Chinese market. Steph, do you want to uh  
[15:56] give these a go? Hang on. Let's uh you're not 
short. I'm just so tall. Everybody, let's see.
[16:10] Now, this buffalo wings tastes pretty good to me 
now. Uh better than our local farang bars in both  
[16:16] Bangkok and Shenzhen. But important thing is where 
does it rank among all of our 4-1 concoctions…  
[16:23] from Taco Bell Jianbing to Henry Kissingers Moo 
Goo Gai Pan? Well, first I think our all-time  
[16:30] best is our chili chip Laziji, the Sichuan style 
chili chicken where you can eat the chili chips.  
[16:38] It's so good that it should really be a thing. As 
for this buffalo wing, I think it ranks slightly  
[16:44] above the deep fried pineapple pizza bao? Anyway, 
again all of our 4-1 recipes are real recipesl,  
[16:52] tested, and if you're ever curious of any one 
of them I do really recommend you give it a try.  
[16:59] They are quite fun and tasty. Anyway, real normal 
Chinese recipe coming out next week…ish? Uh,  
[17:08] in the meantime, thank you for 
everyone that's supporting us  
[17:10] on Patreon and subscribe for 
more Chinese Remixified videos.
[17:20] You don't want that. You want ghost pepper dude? 
Would you be afraid of the vegetable fields?