Buffalo Wings

After extensive experimentation, I have found a great wings recipe.

Ingredients

Optional
To prepare the wings, wash them and cut into wingettes by severing the wing at the joints. Discard the wing tip (outside, they rot easily). Dry them thoroughly.

Preheat the canola oil (or any other oil with a very high smoke point) to maximum heat without smoking.

Deep-fry the wings until golden brown, about 17-20 minutes. Stir occassionally in order to assume even cooking and no sticking together of the wings. With the fire still on, remove the wings and drain them on paper towels. (I use tongs to do this.) Let them cool a little until they can be touched.

Prepare the sauce by grinding four small-medium hot peppers and adding them to the Wing Tip (get only that brand) sauce, stirring well. Peppers have hot oil that is very sticky and painful, so use latex gloves. Do not use a coffee grinder. I normally use chiles de arbol and sometimes add an habenero or two.

Roll the cooked wings in the sauce, coating them well, and place down on a foil-lined cookie sheet. Put them into a pre-heated oven (on broil) and bake until the sauce dries. That should take about 5-10 minutes.

Let the wings cool for a minute or two and then remove them from the foil and place on a bed of lettuce leaves. Add celery sticks under or around the wings.

Two tinkers work ok. Changing the amount of hot pepper in the sauce can vary the wings from mild to atomic. Broiling the wings for less time will create a stickier, wetter, messier sauce. I like them mostly dry personally.

Makes twenty wingettes.


Jeff Goldsmith, jeff@tintin.jpl.nasa.gov, April 25, 1996