Chongqing hotpot base is available at most Asian markets.
It’s made to be a hot pot soup base, but is easily portioned and soluble so you can throw your desired amount of that brick(1x1 cm cross-section is a good start) into any hot dish you’re cooking and mix in as much spicy, savory complex flavor as you like.
It’s my favorite cooking ingredient. Has at least a dozen complementary spices mixed in, stores indefinitely, can be added to any savory dish, many portions, inexpensive, and is easy to adjust to taste.
Those mala wings sound bomb, great call on drying them out first.
I do the same thing with my hotpot soup leftovers, marinate whatever meat is in the fridge.
It started from some leftover hot pot i put in the fridge and then reheated a couple days later and I was like oh, DUH!