Chilli Bean Roasted Chicken Wings

It's income tax season in Malaysia! Yes, that time of year for hair pulling and face clawing, running helter skelter looking for your receipts and what not to make claims for reliefs and rebates. What fun! Actually, if you put in place a system to organize your receipts and whatever, it's not that bad. I hang a nice little organizer in my study and as and when I incur a claimable expense, I slot my receipts and any other relevant items in there.

Things like dividend vouchers, medical and life insurance statements, receipts for books etc. won't go missing again. Come March and April, I can easily retrieve my documents. But of course there are situations when you may have your documents in place, but motivation to actually start doing your returns is another matter. I always like to get my tax filing out of the way, pay my dues and get on with my life.

When the e-filing system opened on 1 March 2013, I was all revved up to get my returns in. Call me mad but beating deadlines is my only form of extreme sports and I didn't realize that I was that competitive. But alas, as well organized as I was, I missed out my Dad's medical bill which my Mum (from whom I inherited the genes for good organization) had put inside my Dad's medical folder.

The next day, 2 March 2013 (a Saturday), I sat in front of my computer and logged in. When I hit the send button, what I got was a  system error message. Alamak! The system was not ready for me. Hmmmph! No matter, this can wait. It's not as if the Lembaga Hasil Dalam Negeri (Inland Revenue Board) was giving out prizes to the first tax return filed.

Come Monday morning, I filed my returns. The folks at the LHDN must be wondering who is this mad cow. If only we had more taxpayers like this one. Hee..hee....So what do chicken wings have to do with all this? A celebration of course! For getting my tax affairs sorted out early and fulfilling my responsibility as a taxpayer.

The marinade for the wings is the one I used for my Chilli Bean Roasted Chicken.

Chilli Bean Roasted Chicken Wings
Recipe source : Phong Hong

Ingredients :
- 10 chicken wings, cleaned and pat dry

Marinade :
- 5 cloves garlic, finely pounded
- 1" ginger, finely pounded
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 2 tablespoons light soya sauce
- 2 tablespoons fish sauce
- 1 tablespoon chilli bean sauce
- 1 tablespoon black vinegar
- 1 tablespoon oil

Method :
1. In a mixing bowl, mix all the marinade ingredients together.
2. Pat dry the chicken wings and put them in a freezer bag.
3. Pour marinade into the bag, seal and using your hands, move the wings around to coat evenly with the marinade.
4. Leave to marinate in the fridge at least 4 hours of overnight.
5. Before roasting, bring the wings out to come to room temperature.
6. Preheat oven to 180C.
7. Line a baking tray with aluminum foil.
8. Arrange chicken wings in a single layer and roast for 30-40 minutes or until wings are cooked and browned.
9. Baste with excess marinate every 10 minutes and turn the wings at half time.