Hot wings

While this is definitely NOT a hot wing recipe, it is one that I have done often over the years and it is foolproof/repeatable for me at this point. It is admittedly a little bit more of an involved recipe than a simple hot wing one, but the end result is absolutely spot on for depth and complexity of flavor, tenderness, with a crunchy exterior. If done right, the chicken will literally fall off the bone and your taste buds will explode.

I would invite some of you to try this. Just one time, if nothing else. I can almost say with certainty, that it will not be the last time you made them. They are well worth the effort. Anyhoo, here is my recipe...

Chicken - Tom's Sesame Seed Chicken Wings

1/2 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons sesame, olive or peanut oil (I prefer peanut oil)
4 green onions with tops, finely sliced
1/2 medium onion, finely sliced
4 fresh garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
Dash of pepper
2 1/2 lbs. chicken wings

1 - Take a med. to lg. mixing bowl and combine all of the ingredients except for the wings, mix well.

2 - Add washed and dry patted wings, mixing well

3 - Pour everything into a gallon zip-lock bag and marinade in the refrigerator for 2-4 hours (or overnight), turning occasionally. Allow chicken to get closer to room temperature (20-30 min.)

Or you can use the preferred method for step #3....

3 Preferred - If you have a food Vac/sealer, pour everything into a bag big enough, vacuum and seal. It'll be ready in 30-40 minutes. Do not refrigerate with this method!

4 - Preheat oven at least 30 min. before placing wings in the oven @ 380 degrees

5 - Discard marinade and place wings on a large cookie sheet or baking pan covered with parchment paper, skin side up.

6 - Bake* uncovered for 30 minutes at 380 degrees. Turn, bake at 395 degrees for 20 minutes. Turn, bake for 6 to 7 minutes at 425 degrees and enjoy the heck out of 'em!



*Please note that the cooking times are for MY stove. As you know, all stoves vary so play with it and adjust accordingly. The end result should be to die for.

Tom

YES YES YES......good thread. I'll be joining this thread shortly this coming week..... @PSOVLSK have you seen Franks new flavors, well new to me, just picked this up...

PSOVLSK wrote: »

@Geoff4rfc thanks for the heads up on the Franks other sauces. I haven’t seen any of them.

You're welcome. This goes into my next attempt this week....

Geoff4rfc wrote: »

YES YES YES......good thread. I'll be joining this thread shortly this coming week..... @PSOVLSK have you seen Franks new flavors, well new to me, just picked this up...

The Mango Habanero is kick A$$!

I do wings in the oven.

I get whole wings, not the buffalo style drums and flats, whole wings, uncut and skin on.

Make sure they are fully thawed!

I cover them heavy in salt, black pepper, garlic powder and paprika. Add cayenne if you want them more fiery. I would not use a sauce, sauces will just scorch and taste terrible. You can make a sauce on the side, though, if you want. I'm not a cop and there's no rules.

Preheat the oven to 425.

Place the wings in a baking dish or on a baking sheet, just make sure you have enough area or depth for the chicken fat run off. They will let go of a lot, especially from the skin and if it drips over because your tray is over-full, it will start a grease fire. Also, if the bottoms are bathed in chicken grease, they will come out soggy instead of crisp.

Arrange the wings on the sheet or in the dish with about 1 inch of space between them at the minimum.

Then throw them in the oven.

Cooking time varies depending on the size of the chicken wings. You can do this with legs, thighs and bone-in **** too. It usually takes about 40 minutes to an hour.

You can do it with a whole chicken as well, just let it roast for a little bit at a lower temp, like 325, for an hour or so before you crank up the heat to get that crisp finish. I find that reversing the process, starting out hot and end cooler dries the chicken out. Starting out cooler so you get the heat soak you need and then cranking the heat gets a better result.

My rule of thumb, though, is to cook parts (legs, wings, thighs, etc) at the 425 until the seasoning on the skin starts to blacken. They are usually done by then. Sometimes a whole leg (leg and thigh together) will take a bit longer so just watch them and when you don't see red or pink juices running, they are done.

Next time I make the baked chicken, I'll take a picture. The wings, though, come out just like you would expect for a typical hot wing. Crispy but juicy and as fiery as you want to make them. That's why I don't have a recipe or ingredients list. It's all "to taste" and pretty much just baked chicken. No sauces, no specific signature seasoning mix, you don't even need to pre-grease the pan. It's the method that matters.

Jstas wrote: »

I do wings in the oven.

I cover them heavy in salt, black pepper, garlic powder and paprika. Add cayenne if you want them more fiery.

My man!!!

Mine are also done in the oven with those exact spices on one side, then flipped halfway through the baking process and seasoned on the other side however I use the individual pieces, not the whole.

Turn your exit hole into a coffee can sauce is made on the stovetop. At the end of the baking process, wings are coated then under the broiler for a couple of minutes...this is the most crucial part and must be babysat so they don't burn, then pull as they start to bubble.

Juicy and melt in your mouth tender every time and, they complain about the "heat" as continue to shove 'em down lol

motorhead43026 wrote: »

I also am in the oven camp when doing wings. I recently replaced my 25yr old range with an induction cooktop and convection oven option. Baking with sheet pans with racks on the convention setting makes for an excellent way to cook wings.

Good stuff on this topic to be found here.

You know all these air fryers everyone is on about?

All they are is tiny convection ovens.

They're nice if all you need to cook is something small rather than fire up something big enough to cook a Thanksgiving dinner. That in itself shortens the cooking time.

They also fry up wings much crispier than a full size convection oven. They take way much less time to preheat and they also don't heat the entire kitchen up.

I kept telling my wife that we didn't need one for years and years, that we already have one. Well, fast forward to today and for the last 2 years, we have actually used the air fryer way more than the oven. Probably a 90/10 percentage.

Not everything is better in the air fryer but most things are. Since it also toasts 12 slices of bread at a time, both of our toasters are out in the garage and are only brought back out for large family breakfasts, when we have a lot of guests.

Something I used to think was useless for our family has actually become a wonderful addition to the kitchen tool arsenal.

Tom

I guess I should have clarified/expanded a bit on my last post. While I don't recall ever using another air fryer, I have tasted some food out of friends air fryers before. What they did, they did a decent job of....but not enough for me to pull the trigger on an air fryer. I didn't really like the idea of yet, ANOTHER item that I had to bring in from the garage.

Most of the ones I had seen before were oddly shaped, they were all generally small and you had to do things in batches. Not my idea of a good time in the kitchen, especially when you try to get everything you are preparing for the meal to come out at the same time.

Before I pulled the trigger on an air fryer, I must have read about 700 or some odd reviews (probably a lot more) about various this and that. What intrigued me most about the comments, was the fact that the kitchen didn't become an extension of the oven, as you were cooking. Think Thanksgiving. The temperature of the kitchen usually gets about 10 to 15 degrees hotter (if not more) than the rest of the house. That's not good. Especially when you have a house full of people, who also raise the temperature of the inside of your home.

Because I didn't want another item to pull in and out of the kitchen, I started looking at countertop models. ATK/Cooks illustrated at the time had one that they liked. It was a Breville. It wasn't only an air fryer, it did many other things and the reviews were very positive at the time (haven't looked at the reviews since purchasing). Now, since I already had a Breville microwave, this one actually matched what I already had. That was a plus. Not one review at the time relayed that the results would top that of a convection oven, which is basically a big air fryer. Knowing what I know now, I find that to be a little surprising. There is a difference when the heating elements are so close to the food! Crispy!!!

Anyhoo, what I am trying to say is that I didn't get a $40 or $80 small and weirdly shaped air fryer where you had to do things in batches. I ended up with a Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro.



It does more than just air fry. It handles toasting 12 slices of bread or regularly sized bagels at a time, it broils, bakes, roasts, warms, it has a pizza setting (which works very well BTW), it is a great vessel to proof breads, reheats things faster than an oven, does wonders on small batches of large diameter cookies (using a 2" scoop) and can even dehydrate foods (I haven't tried that yet though).

So, before you get all excited about an air fryer doing some things better than a convection oven, keep in mind the level of where I started air frying. It wasn't just a cheap Wally World special. I looked and I have had it for 4 years now and it gets daily use, most days with it being used multiple times a day. You may not want one right now, but I highly recommend this unit, and you may put this in your head as a great X-mas present. I bought this one as a gift for my wife....and I ended up using it more than her......even though I told her for years that we didn't need one. That we already had one. Yeah, I ate crow on this one. She gives me chit often about being so stubborn about not wanting an air fryer. Idgit. (me)

Oh, one other thing. Because this one has so many levels you can put a rack on, cooking two things at a time is pretty common. For instance, we will roast broccoli on the top shelf and during the last 6 minutes of roasting, we will toast some bread on a lower shelf. Start a little bit earlier and we have been known to also bake biscuits as the broccoli is roasting. It's just a winner in my book. Reheating a little bit of a leftover side isn't that uncommon either. 1/4 sheet pans fit on the adjustable grates perfectly.

Okay, sorry about getting off topic a bit. I'm just a big fan of it for reheating wings, along with everything else it offers (and ends up cooking better than the oven). But, when doing lots of wings, my preference is to use the oven - or even better, the grill. That way, I don't have to do them in batches when I'm not just cooking them for myself. FWIW. My apologies for the long winded and off topic post.

Tom

Tom, that is a pretty interesting little appliance you have there. It's like a toaster oven on steroids? Haven't seen those before. I've also been anti-air fryer for the last few years. Not enough counter space, etc. Maybe I'll reconsider.

I will say, though, that while I've seen and had the sorry excuses for fried foods that come out of the small, cheap air fryers like Tom was talking about, this Sur La Table deal is light years beyond that.

French fries are a good example 'cause they came out of that basket crispy on the outside and almost creamy in the middle. I put it in for 20 minutes and it could have used a longer time or maybe less fries in the basket so the ones in the middle got done better but that basket sucked up a whole package of McCain Seasoned Crinkle Cut fries (26 ounces) and there was enough room in the fry basket for them to tumble and circulate.

They recommend the tumble basket for most stuff that you would put in a deep fryer.

The only thing an air fryer does not do well is battered stuff. It doesn't get hot enough, quick enough to keep batter from dripping every where. Despite what the websites tell you. If your air fryer comes with a drip pan, you're gonna need it!

That said, like I said before, an air fryer will not fully replace a deep fryer or an oven. It certainly makes things easier for daily stuff but a bucket of hot oil still has a place.

Anyway, my point was to bring this back to hot wings and yes, if you get a high quality air fryer, it will do hot wings as well as an oven or grill for naked wings or dry rubbed wings. If you use a batter, results may not be up to expectations and you have potentially PITA level mess to clean up too.

But, it's a lot easier than dealing with a bucket of hot oil.

pitdogg2 wrote: »

In a former life I had a rotisserie chicken machine, LOVED that thing.

Was it Ron Popeil's Showtime Rotisserie?

I had a friend whose mother had one and she made all kinds of stuff in it.

Her regular cooking was turrible but that thing made her cooking actually enjoyable.

sucks2beme wrote: »

Never much cared for Buffalo wings. I did like Sal's birdland hot chicken
up in Rochester N.Y.. They used a sweet style hot sauce. Much like Boss
sauce available online. I also like Gus's hot fried chicken here in Tennessee.
I believe Hattie B's hot chicken is very similar. I have yet to go there.

We have a Gus's here in SA, decent.