I’M PRETTY old-school when it comes frying or roasting chicken, usually cooking breasts and thighs in the trusty cast-iron skillet I inherited years ago from my mother. My kids? Now that they’re on their own, they prefer to do all their frying in an air fryer, a time-saving, user-friendly appliance that makes cooking faster, easier and, in most cases, a little healthier, too. The egg-shaped cookers produce crispy fried foods with a fraction of the oil used in traditional cooking.
All you need is a tiny spritz of oil in the fryer basket or on the food being cooked and you’re good to go. So when one of my twin daughters came to visit, I felt obligated to pull my air fryer off the shelf in my pantry, dust it off and actually put it to use for the first time in, well, forever. It helps that I had the perfect recipe already in hand: a banh mi-like sandwich featuring tender chunks of chicken thigh doused in a spicy-sweet bang bang sauce.
Every family makes their own version of the creamy, mayonnaise-based dip that’s often associated with the shrimp dish of the same name. Per my daughter Catherine, ours includes a teaspoon of smoked paprika and a squeeze of fresh lime juice along with the requisite Sriracha and spicy-sweet tang of another favorite Asian condiment: Thai sweet chili sauce. A perfect balance of heat, salt, sweet and acid, bang bang sauce is often used as a dressing or dipping sauce for egg rolls or french fries.
Here, it’s a tasty marinade for chicken thigh k.