Chicken Wings

[darkstar965]

I love a good, authentic buffalo wing (of course made with Frank's hot sauce) as much as the next guy or gal. But, this football season, I've been using a Raichlen recipe based on Malaysian (Penang specifically) street food and getting raves. Of course, part of those raves are also due to the 24-36 hour brine and the source (Stachowski has been getting gorgeous, large wings for me on a day or two notice). With the Superbowl now just three days out, I'll be doing 60 or 70 for a party.

Do others have favorite wing recipes or does everyone just buy them somewhere out? Kind of must have for football.

[DC Deb]

This recipe from Saveur July 2012 issue was really good. It became a real favorite for family meal.

http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Thai-Chicken-Wings

[mdt]

I make wings using a rather simple dry brine type technique. I salt and cover the wings with either garam masala or Chinese 5-spice powder and toss them in a bag and let them sit in the fridge for a day, then I lay them on a sheet in the fridge overnight to dry out a bit. Roast in a high oven until done, serve, enjoy.

[Anna Blume]

La Brea Tar Pit Wings

You'll need finger bowls, though.

[darkstar965]

I've had a few people ask me for the Raichlen wing recipe I've been using this football season and which I referenced in starting this topic. Just wanted to post a placeholder here to say I need to check on one thing to make sure I'm giving accurate info and will have this posted by early evening. So please check back tonight. And, no worries, if you (like me) want to make it for superbowl, it doesn't need to go into the brine until tomorrow.

And, btw, with all the hugely deserved praise for all of Jaime Stachowski's beef, hams, sausages and sandwiches, have to tell you that he is as good a source for fresh chicken wings as you'll find in our area.

[darkstar965]

Thanks above, DCDeb and mdt and Anna. Some interesting ideas there I'll experiment with in the future.

And, as promised:

I've gotten a few requests since posting about the recipe I've been using to share it. Most home BBQ fans know Stephen Raichlen, one of the best known grillmasters/authors/television personalities. I like him better than Bobby Flay, thinking Raichlen is more a true BBQ obsessive than celebrity. One of my favorite BBQ books is his "Barbecue Bible" (my version was published in 1998 with the most recent edition 2008 available here. It was a winner of a Julia Child cookbook award). For some reason, the recipe I've been using this football season successfully isn't on his website. It's from that book, where he precedes it with a similar recipe he got in Malaysia by promising the vendor a "lucky lottery number". Great stuff. I love the book in large part because it features global bbq and not just the standard American stuff.

Anyway, here's the recipe. The only change I made to it, which I'd strongly recommend, is to brine the wings in advance for at least 24 hours. That penetrates the chicken and ensures super flavor unlike just marinating. I've tried it both ways. Both were good; brining was better. And, of course, fine to use fractions or multiples of the quantities below depending on how many wings you're making.

Ingredients:

- 16 whole chicken wings ( ~ 3.5 lbs)
- 3 large shallots, peeled
- 6 cloves garlic, peeled
- 1 piece (1 inch) fresh ginger
- 2-10 Thai, serrano, or small jalapeno chiles, seeded (for hotter wings, leave seeds in)*
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 2 Tbsp soy sauch
- 2 Tbsp sweet soy sauce (ketjap manis); can substitute 1 Tbsp each of regular soy sauce and molasses
- 1 Tsp Chinese five-spice powder

Preparation:

(1) Brine wings using whatever method and brine you prefer so long as flavors aren't too strong or at odds with the sauce you'll make when grilling. A basic salt, sugar, vinegar brine with a few herbs works well. 24 hours is optimal. A few hours longer is fine too.

(2) Rinse wings under cold running water and blot dry with cloth or paper towels. Can make a slash or two in each wing though I haven't done this and the flavor was great. Raichlen probably specifies this because he didn't brine his. Put wings into a big enough bowl and then the refrigerator while you prepare the spice paste.

(3) Combine shallots, garlic, ginger and chiles in a food processor and process to a smooth paste. Add 1/4 cup of the oil, the soy sauces, and five-spice powder, again processing until smooth.**

(4) Heat remaining 1/4 cup oil in a wok or small, heavy skillet over medium heat. Add the spice paste and cook, stirring constantly, until thick, brown and very flavorful, about 8-12 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool completely.

(5) Add the cooled spice paste to the chicken and mix wings to coat all of them thoroughly. Clean hands the best "tool" for this.

(6) At this point, Raichlen directs a 6-24 hour marinade in the refigerator. But, with brining, that's not necessary and I think the brining yields the superior result.

(7) When ready to cook, preheat an indoor (cast iron preferable to get crispy skin) or outdoor grill to medium-high, oil grill surface or grates and arrange wings on the hot grill. Turn semi-regularly with tongs until no longer pink near the bone (about 12-16 minutes all in).

* Quoting Raichlen here with his note about heat related to the range of chili peppers specified above in the ingredient list. "Two seeded chiles will give you piquant wings; 10 unseeded would make even a Malaysian firebrand feel at home." My take: I use 2 chilis, one seeded one without seeds and that seemed to satisfy a wide range of tastes.

** Spice paste ingredients can also be pureed in a blender. If you do that, they can all be processed together.

Finally, these can be kept warm in a 250-degree oven if not too long in a pyrek or ceramic dish covered in foil.

Different take on the traditional buffalo wing. Really addictive and delicious. These and some good beer and the Ravens will win for sure.
Please post if you make this! Would love to hear if you have as good a reaction to them as I have had.

[Nervous Eater]

THANK YOU, darkstar! Picking up wings from Stachowski tomorrow morning then immediately going into a brine. We're having these wings, plus an entire leg of Olli prosciutto, plus some other stuff I haven't fully decided on yet. These wings will definitely be a hit.

[darkstar965]

One other note on the recipe which is probably obvious--just wanted to be sure.

Whether you with marinating (and slashing) or brining, be sure to mix up the wings once they're in since the brine/marinade time is long at 24 or more hours. I've stirred them around, ensuring roughly even coverage roughly every 8 hours. Especially key for brining if you have some wings that are above the surface in the pot or container. Likewise if marinating to ensure full coverage.

Depending on how many serranos you use, this will really create a piquant aroma thoughout your house when you cook down the paste!

[Sthitch]

Kenji Lopez-Alt, the evil genius that runs the food lab at Serious Eats has come up with three different wing recipes that can be a bit time consuming, but are worth it in the end. The traditional fried method he calls for confiting the wings first and then letting them cool and frying them again. The slow oil bath draws the collagen to the surface and produces a wing that has the crunch of being breaded, but without the sogginess.

The second method is for baking the wings. Here he calls for them to be dusted with salt and baking powder then allowed to rest in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours before baking them. So far my results from using this method have been nothing short of astounding, the wings are almost as crispy as the confiting method and without the added fat.

The third method does not really work with a thin sauce like Buffalo, but is great with a thicker sauce like a Korean wing sauce. For this method the wings are dipped into a flour/cornstarch batter before being fried. To prevent gluten from forming in the batter he calls for using vodka instead of water – it works like a charm. Like the other two methods this has worked beautifully each time I have tried it. The recipe is for frying cornish game hens, but I have always used it for wings and it works just fine.

[LauraB]

Where do you buy the Frank's Red Hot Sauce for the baking method?

[Sthitch]

Where do you buy the Frank's Red Hot Sauce for the baking method?

That is just the name of regular Frank's that is available in almost every grocery store.

[Pat]

The second method is for baking the wings. Here he calls for them to be dusted with salt and baking powder then allowed to rest in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours before baking them. So far my results from using this method have been nothing short of astounding, the wings are almost as crispy as the confiting method and without the added fat.

I usually dredge in seasoned flour and bake. I haven't tried the salt and baking powder, though I do read his columns religiously. Maybe I should try refrigerating before baking. For sauce, I use Frank's, melted butter, and lime juice.

[Sthitch]

I usually dredge in seasoned flour and bake. I haven't tried the salt and baking powder, though I do read his columns religiously. Maybe I should try refrigerating before baking. For sauce, I use Frank's, melted butter, and lime juice.

Read his whole write up on the baked wings, once you do I think you will ditch the flour. I do not follow his sauce recipes, just his cooking methods. By the way his method for making risotto works very well.

[darkstar965]

We're now a week away from deflate-gate....I mean...the Super Bowl. So, time to resuscitate this thread from two years ago to see how others have pushed the edge and used all the new technology and know-how at our disposal to make ever-better wings.

For my part, have been experimenting some in the past year with baking. By that, I mean trying out different recipes (from the zillions available!) that advocate baking as a better, more interesting or even gluten-free way to get wings as crispy and as delicious as with the more traditional approaches of frying or grilling.  Big claim I know.

After trying a bunch of different, oven-based recipes, I unknowingly chose the one that Sthitch raved about in post #9 above. I'll paste it in here, highlighting the relevant part.

Kenji Lopez-Alt, the evil genius that runs the food lab at Serious Eats has come up with three different wing recipes that can be a bit time consuming, but are worth it in the end.  The traditional fried method he calls for confiting the wings first and then letting them cool and frying them again.  The slow oil bath draws the collagen to the surface and produces a wing that has the crunch of being breaded, but without the sogginess.

 
The second method is for baking the wings.  Here he calls for them to be dusted with salt and baking powder then allowed to rest in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours before baking them.  So far my results from using this method have been nothing short of astounding, the wings are almost as crispy as the confiting method and without the added fat.

The third method does not really work with a thin sauce like Buffalo, but is great with a thicker sauce like a Korean wing sauce.  For this method the wings are dipped into a flour/cornstarch batter before being fried.  To prevent gluten from forming in the batter he calls for using vodka instead of water "“ it works like a charm.  Like the other two methods this has worked beautifully each time I have tried it.  The recipe is for frying cornish game hens, but I have always used it for wings and it works just fine.

I chose this from other baking methods because I liked the scientific approach (seems appropriate for food inhaled at a football game) and the unconventional ingredient (baking powder) made some sense to me in terms of changing the pH of the skin in a way to encourage crisping.  Followed the approach as prescribed, drying them in the fridge for a full 18 hours (the max that Kenji Lopez-Alt suggests).

I'm not quite as enthusiastic as Sthitch on these.  Don't get me wrong.  They were surprisingly good.  But, the salt level is a bit too high in that recipe and, while they did crisp, not as much as ideal.  Still, cool recipe.

So, where does this leave me?  Well, I still haven't bitten the bullet on a Big Green Egg but, when I do, deep-smoking the wings will be one of my first experiments once I climb the expected learning curve with that hardware. BGEs aside,  I've become even more in love with the Raichlen recipe I wrote out above in post #6 .  And, I haven't yet tried the briefly-stated but interestingly named "La Brea Tar Pit Wings" suggested by Anna Blume above in Post #4.  "Finger bowls," eh?  Not sure I can do another trial batch before game day but who knows?

Any new secrets others are willing to share?  Did anyone ever try any of the suggestions made above and can comment?

Oh, and clearly Belichick and Brady are telling the truth.  Pats 32 Hawks 17. You heard it here first. 

[Pat]

Anybody want to try this one? http://www.ruthreichl.com/2015/01/piri-piri-wings.html

[darkstar965]

Anybody want to try this one? http://www.ruthreichl.com/2015/01/piri-piri-wings.html

This is interesting. Reichl's "secret ingredient" with these appears to be baking soda. Kenji Lopez-Alt had a baking soda version along with the baking powder version he preferred and I used above. Lopez-Alt aside, I don't think I've ever tried a baking soda recipe despite making more batches of wings over the years than I could possibly quantify. I'll have to try it though I'm increasingly coming around to believing all the baking, roasting and grilling recipes are competing for the silver medal relative to the best fried recipes.

[Pat]

This is interesting. Reichl's "secret ingredient" with these appears to be baking soda. Kenji Lopez-Alt had a baking soda version along with the baking powder version he preferred and I used above. Lopez-Alt aside, I don't think I've ever tried a baking soda recipe despite making more batches of wings over the years than I could possibly quantify. I'll have to try it though I'm increasingly coming around to believing all the baking, roasting and grilling recipes are competing for the silver medal relative to the best fried recipes.

Well, baking soda and egg whites seem to be the secret ingredients.  I've seen baking powder or soda before but not egg whites.

For some reason, I always just instinctively trust Ruth.

[darkstar965]

Well, baking soda and egg whites seem to be the secret ingredients.  I've seen baking powder or soda before but not egg whites.

For some reason, I always just instinctively trust Ruth.

I like (and trust) her also. And, had missed the egg whites on the ingredient list. That is novel. I'm convinced. Will try this with my next batch. Thanks Pat!