Buffalo Wings

Perfect for Saturday nights and Super Bowl parties.

Posted 4 February 2010 in Recipes. Tags: butter, cheat-day, chicken, flour, wings.

Wings has to be up there pretty high on my list of favourites. Right up there with pizza.

This is one of those dishes that exemplifies the greatness of cooking at home:

• It’s way cheaper than eating the same dish at a restaurant or pub.
• You can make as many as you want (5 – 8 is never enough).
• And they taste better when you cook them.

Of course, there’s no scantily-clad, “bouncy” young waitress bringing them to your table, asking if you’d like another beer and touching your arm. Nothing’s perfect.

But you can eat them on your couch.

This requires special equipment, sorry. Well, that’s not entirely true, but given the messiness of deep frying, special equipment is desirable. (It’s one of the small appliances I consider necessary in the kitchen.)¹ We have a T-Fal EZ Clean Deep Fryer. After two mishaps that resulted in oil everywhere, this thing has worked wonders. Wings, donuts, fries: anything fried that you think you can only order in a restaurant can be made in this baby.²

If you’re truly adventurous, or too cheap to drop some coin on a deep fryer, you can use a large pot or dutch oven. I’ve never tried it, so can’t comment either way. Doing that strikes as me being way too much work, and cooking should be fun.

The trick to wings is knowing when to take them out of the oil. You want a nice crispy coating and moist chicken. It shouldn’t be greasy. Practice improves your judgement. I use equal parts butter and hot sauce for the sauce. You may find that a little too buttery. I wouldn’t go lower than two tablespoons (1/4 cup divided by 2). Hot sauce isn’t saucy enough on its own. The creator of Buffalo Wings used hot sauce and margarine. You should avoid margarine at all costs.

Want Blue Cheese Dressing? Go somewhere else. I prefer my wings unadorned.

Serves 2 hungry people

• 20 wings, split, tips removed
• salt and flour
• 1/4 cup hot sauce (I use Frank’s Red Hot)
• 1/4 cup butter

Heat your oil to 375F.

In a large zip top bag, put the wings, flour and salt. Close up so there’s air in the bag. Shake to coat the wings in flour.

In my fryer, only 10 wings at a time is optimal. Cook until golden brown and cooked through, 8 – 10 minutes. Shake off the excess oil and place in a large, shallow bowl. Repeat as needed until the wings are cooked.

While the second batch fries, make the sauce: In a microwave safe dish, melt the butter. Once melted, add the hot sauce. Stir to combine.

Pour the sauce over the wings. Toss to coat.

Serve immediately.

1. The others are food processor, blender and stand mixer. [↩]
2. not entirely accurate, but whatever [↩]