I like to bake my wings to cut down on the amount of fat. I put em in a baking sheet, spray’em with a little PAM and bake for about 30-45 mins at 375-400. Take’em out, toss in a bowl with your favorite hot sauce and a little butter, then BACK on the baking sheet and into the oven again for about 15 mins. This bakes the sauce on to the wings. Yum.
Buffalo native here.
An Arky’s method sounds pretty good. I cut to the chase and use a little garlic salt instead of garlic and salt.
There are people who add a little celery seed, a little tabasco, a little worcestershire – but I think it is better to wait on this stuff until you’ve perfected your basic wing sauce, and want to take it to the next level to make your own signature sauce.
One thing I will add is that there is a debate in the native wing community about whether butter or margarine makes the best sauce. Some people say that margarine is the best, and others say it doesn’t really matter. Now that I think of it, I’ve never heard anyone say that butter is better, only that it’s the same. The margarine people are rabid in their claims that margarine is the far superior base for the sauce. If you like making wings enough that you do it again, you might want to try it both ways and see which you prefer.
Do your wings have tips? You know you’re supposed to cut off the wing tips, right? Also, frozen will work just fine for perfectly serviceable wings, but unless he’s got a much better source for frozen wings than I do, usually you get better quality wings/drums from a butcher. If you make them and think they’re good, but not quite as good as in a restaurant, it might be the chicken itself. People get so into tinkering with their sauce to make the perfect wing, and sometimes forget the chicken. I mention this not to critique your roommate’s wings, but to add something to consider in your future wing-making.
Just got back from the store and sure enough, there was Frank’s Red Hot sauce. I’m a big fan of hot sauces, and it’s beyond me how I’ve managed to go through life without having noticed it before.
Anyway, they had ‘original’ and ‘Buffalo ready to use.’ I’m a traditionalist, so I went with ‘original.’ I figure Frank didn’t originally have a ‘Buffalo’ version, right?
Shalmanese, that was a great pictorial. I don’t have a deep fryer, but I’m pretty good at deep frying in my Wok, so I should be OK.
teela brown, I picked up some Teriyaki sauce while I was at the store too. I’m a little concerned the Teriyaki would be a bit on the too sweet side, but the recipe sounds interesting anyway. Plus, my roommate loves Teriyaki so I’m sure it’ll go over great.
Thanks to everyone else for your suggestions, too. I may try baking some wings so I can compare how they turn out.
Just curious, why is this? I’ll go ahead & lop 'em off. But how much of a difference does it really make?
There isn’t much (well any really) meat on those tips. You just end up sucking sauce from the tip if they are included (and they waste sauce! ;))
This will probably get me pelted off of the thread with chicken bones, but oh well. By far my favorite recipes are as follows:
Atlanta Variation:
1 - Get in car.
2 - Drive to nearest Taco Mac.
3 - Order 1 lb of “Hot” wings (all drums), a side salad, and a Snakebite to drink.
(Sadly discontinued) Humboldt County Variation:
1 - Get in car.
2 - Drive to Humboldt Brewery (now closed).
3 - Order 1lb of “Hot” wings (all drums), a side salad, and share a pitcher of their Black Cherry Stout with a couple of close college girlfriends.
I do have one legitimate contribution to the OP…
Toss your wings and sauce together using an stainless steel mixing bowl like this.
That’s the only way I’ve ever seen it done.
I know, that’s usually how I’ve had the best wings. Years back, when I lived on the east coast near my brother who has a pilot’s license, we’d fly over to this little restaurant that was attached to the local small airport. It specialized in wings. Must have had at least twenty different flavors, as well as at least six or so levels of heat on their traditional Buffalo style wings. The highest was called “death.” I tried one. Only one. Damn, I don’t know how they got that much concentrated capsaicin on that one little wing. I mean, I can handle some heat, but that was just silly. They said it was Habanero based. Yeah right. That’s like saying chewing a coca leaf is like smoking pure crack.
Hm. My large bowls are all glass pyrex type things. Gonna have to do.
teela brown, I made up your sauce. Maybe I got something wrong? I was confused at the store as to which Teriyaki sauce to get. They’ve got about 30 different Teriyaki sauces & marinades. I said “screw it” and went to the Asian section and just got the basic ‘original’ Kikkoman’s Teriyaki sauce. It’s hardly sweet at all, but it has the same consistency of soy sauce. After mixing it all up, it tastes awesome.
But, it’s very liquid-ey. I’m wondering how it would stick to the wings. So I’ve got it in the fridge getting cold and what I’m thinking of doing is while the wings are cooking, mixing a little corn starch with the sauce and heating it on the stove until it thickens a bit. Does this set off any alarm bells with you? Or anyone?
Boil those wing tips, they make excellent chicken broth! Even if you use it for nothing else, try simmering some veggies in chicken broth instead of water. Also, use chicken broth instead of water for making rice.
Being from Atlanta, I’m surprised you didn’t mention 3 Dollar Cafe wings. Hands down Best I’ve Ever Tasted. I would pay hard cash for the recipe for their wings, and the source of their Bleu Cheese Dressing.
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Sure sign of non-authentic wing.
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Really, there isn’t enough meat on there to make it worth your while, and what little there is will fry right off in the time it takes to cook the meaty part of the wing, so it gets wasted. As Lynn says, you can save them for broth.
I’ll definitely save them for broth. I hate to let chicken parts go to waste.
I just figured they’d get fried to a dry crunchiness. Sometimes I like gnawing on dry crunchy bone bits. Makes me feel all cave-man.
Btw, I actually just followed this recipe earlier tonight :D. MMMMMMMMM… Taco Mac wings (with Three Mile Island sauce :))
In fact, this is the only place in my cooking for margarine. In all other cases, I vote for butter over margarine. For Buffalo wings, it’s gotta be margarine.
You can’t go wrong with Delphica’s advice. The main thing is to get the deep-fried chicken part right. Wings must be meaty and crispy and should be eaten as soon as possible after removing from the deep fryer and tossing in the sauce. For my sauce, I start with two parts Frank’s to one part margarine. Depending on my mood, I’ll either keep it simple and not add anything, or I’ll put in some yellow mustard, freshly crushed garlic, a dash of Worcestershire, and perhaps a little bit of honey if I want to cut back on the acidity.
You’re right about there being a million kinds of teriyaki sauce at the store! I always pick up the bottles and tilt them around. Some are as watery as plain old soy sauce, and I choose the thick, sticky ones. If you’ve already made a batch with the thin stuff, yes, go ahead and try to thicken the sauce with a little cornstarch so it’ll cling a bit better. If you do, post and let me know if it worked.
You’ve got me hungry for some Asian buffalo wings. The mister always complains that I only make them for office functions and not for him. Maybe tonight will be wing night at home!
Ha, well another caveman chicken wing party trick, if you’ve got good sized drums, is to eat the meat down to the bare bone. Then, you can crack open the wide end of the bone with a single bite – if you try it a few times, you’ll get a feel for the right angle to get that bone to snap open cleanly – and eat the marrow bits.
PS There’s no point in doing this with a small wing (or drum, actually – it’s funny how collectively they’re all wings, but it still sounds weird when you have to separate out the drummies for the sake of clarity) , and honestly, it’s like one of those things your kookly Uncle Lester does for the sake of out of town guests to demonstrate that when it comes to wings, WE’RE NOT FOOLING AROUND. The marrow’s perfectly good, but it’s tiny.
Ah, cool, someone else knows about this. Everyone I’ve ever heard this from has made excellent wings, but at the same time, it tends to come up in conversation after half a case of Genny, if you know what I mean, so I’ve never been quite sure if it was accurate advice or more like old school posturing (like perhaps making a point of eating the marrow out of a chicken bone).
Me, personally, my wings are pretty good, but I’m only good enough at it so that I can make them in an emergency. When I’m in the homeland, I get wings by calling La Nova – I’m not going to mess around with a deep fryer when someone will show up at my house bearing wings in 20 minutes. I’m thinking my wing skill level is not high enough to really appreciate the butter/margarine difference, as it seems to be a finer point of distinction for wing makers who are really serious about this.
Do you know anything about the food chemistry of why margarine is better?
I’ve heard two reasons put forward – one, that the margarine makes the sauce “stickier” to the wing, or rather that the wing soaks it up more readily, or two, that something about it chemically holds the flavors of the hot sauce and vinegar in a “separate but equal” way so that you taste them individually.
You people are silly Buffalo’s don’t have wings.
As another native Buffalonian checking in, every other pizza joint around here has good wings. As delphica said, the quality of the chicken is 99% of the battle.
Another way to coat the wings is put the butter/margarine Frank’s mix in a tupperwear bowl with a lid and shake vigorously.
If you want mail order go to http://www.anchorbar.com
I’m not a Buffalonian, but I’ve dated a disproportionate number of you gals. (In fact, my current sweetie is from there). So I’ve learned along the way…
Coincidentally enough, this month’s issue of Saveur addresses the issue:
Now, I’ve never heard anyone go so far as to say butter is heretical in a wing sauce. I would only say it’s preferred. Same with the Tabasco–I know plenty of folks from Buffalo who add a few drops or teaspoons of Tabasco to the Franks & margarine base.
Once I got going, I realized 4 lbs. of chicken wings isn’t as much as I thought, and ended up making the whole batch with the original recipe. I still have your sauce all made up & ready, so I’ll try to get some more wings & try it.
delphica, my mom used to chew the marrow out of bones claiming it was really good for you. I got some of my caveman habits from my cavemom.
You se what reading this thread at midnight does to a guy? I am now off to the store to get some wings.
Damn you people!
(And it’s a good thing I have no job so that I can stay up till whenver in the morning.)
Well this thread made me have to go to Taco Mac on Saturday :D.
I made up a batch with your recipe last night. Using corn starch to thicken it up worked great. But, you should let us know which Teriyaki sauce you’re using, because the ‘original’ Kikkoman Teriyaki sauce I used turned out too salty. I think original Teriyaki sauce is very close to soy sauce, which doesn’t make the best hot wing sauce.