Escape from the cold and add some heat to your chicken. Here, LYNN BAIN shares her recipe for a spicy rub.
There are many ways to cook these spicy rubbed chicken drumsticks, drummies and/or wings. They can be cooked in the oven, bulk cooked in a ‘smoker’/barbecue (hot smoker), or in small batches in an air fryer.
In this recipe, I’ve started by rubbing the drummies and wings with some Asian plum sauce before rubbing the spices over the chicken pieces. I find that rubbing the chicken with a sticky sauce before adding the ground spices helps the spices adhere to the chicken more effectively.
The ‘fusion’ bit is that in the ‘wet and dry’ flavourings, I’ve combined an Asian-inspired plum sauce with the Indian spice dry rub.
Handy hack one: please ensure that your spices are fresh. No matter how much we try (me included), there is always a spice labelled “use by July 2019” lurking in your spices somewhere.
Handy hack two: because the spice mixture contains turmeric, I would suggest using a glove to massage the spices on to the chicken to prevent you staining your hand yellow.
Handy hack three: in the following recipe I used an Asian plum sauce (actually a home-made sauce using the native-Australian Davidson’s plums). However, you could use whatever sauce you like — black bean, oyster, tomato, the choice is yours.

Spices

Spicy fusion rub

INGREDIENTS

2 tbsp coriander seeds

2 tbsp cumin seeds

2 tbsp black peppercorns

2 tbsp garam masala

2 tbsp ground ginger

1 tbsp smoked paprika

1 tbsp turmeric

1 tbsp fenugreek

1 tbsp mustard seeds

1 tsp dried chilli flakes

Asian plum sauce

Step 1: Place the whole spices (coriander seeds, cumin seeds, peppercorns, fenugreek, mustard seeds and dried chilli flakes) into either a spice/coffee grinder or a mortar and pestle.

Step 2: A close-up of the spices — pretty colours and lovely flavours!

Step 3: Grind the whole spices to a fine(ish) consistency with no obvious large bits of spices.

Step 4: Now add the powdered spices to the ground spices in the mortar and pestle — more colours and more flavours.

Step 4: Now add the powdered spices to the ground spices in the mortar and pestle — more colours and more flavours.

Step 6: Place the chicken pieces into a large glass bowl and add enough Asian plum sauce to thoroughly cover them.

Step 7: Massage a generous amount of Asian plum sauce into the skin. This sticky sauce will help the spices adhere to the chicken.

Step 8: Pour the ground spices over the chicken pieces.

Step 9: Notice that I’ve put on a food-safe glove. I am wearing the glove to prevent the turmeric staining my hand.

Step 10: Now massage the spices on to the skin of the chicken pieces until the spices adhere to all the nooks and crannies on the chicken. Get into it!