Buffalo Chicken Legs and Thighs?

[mvr556]

I love Buffalo Wings. But, they seem disproportionately expensive at restaurants, and in fresh/raw form they're way more expensive than leg quarters, or legs, or thighs (which would be way more meaty).

How would I deep-fry legs and thighs (temp. and time), or bake a healthier "knock off" version of Buffalo wings (temp., time, coating) using legs and thighs?

[ScoopKW]

I make wings every Sunday during football season -- we switched to breast tenders. Same texture and flavor as the wing, which is important to me. I tried it with dark meat and didn't like it.

Tenders aren't cheap, either. But there's no waste and the process goes a lot quicker compared to wings.

[rotuts]

Ive forgotten the ref. but for some reason chk wings are in great demand and scarce and there fore $$$

Id do this: get the thigh. with a cleaver and a mallet chop the thigh in three or so along the bone. cut the skin with a very sharp knive first in the place you decide to chop.

be very carefull with your fingers and make sure the Ck. is on something that does not slip.

then do these chunks as you used to before.

Wings were used because:

Cheap.

very tasty lots of skin and meat on the bone.

good luck! pls report back!

[Dakki]

No love for the buffalo drumstick? I think it's a great idea.

[BadRabbit]

The problem is going to be the skin to meat ratio. It's what makes wings so awesome and it's what is going to be lacking on any other cut of chicken. If you could find a lot of chicken skin and use transglutaminase to glue it around chicken breast tenders or thigh meat cut into strips, then you might have something.

Edited to add: I'm only partially kidding about the frankenwings.

Edited May 25, 2011 by BadRabbit (log)

[heidih]

I agree with BadRabbit that the ratio of meat to skin is going to give you a perhaps tasty but very different result if you use thigh or drumstick. Although chopping in sections makes sense to get more crispness and flavor per square inch, the skin is just not going to be there. I have noticed the cost of the wings skyrocket, especially when packaged as drumettes - without the other two sections. I find them most reasonable whole (as in all 3 segments connected) from a large Chinese market.

[ChefCrash]

I love Buffalo Wings. But, they seem disproportionately expensive at restaurants, and in fresh/raw form they're way more expensive than leg quarters, or legs, or thighs (which would be way more meaty).

How would I deep-fry legs and thighs (temp. and time), or bake a healthier "knock off" version of Buffalo wings (temp., time, coating) using legs and thighs?

Today I picked up a 7 lb tray of wings (24 whole, Pilgrim's brand) at Sam's Club for $12.46 ($1.78/lb).

But to answer your question, I fry legs and thighs in a tall disk bottomed pot, 10" in diameter filled with 2" of Mazola, gas stove set to high, oil pre-heated to 395*F, 6 pieces at a time for 18 to 19 minutes. After each batch I reheat the oil to 390*F.

If your stove is electric it may run hotter.

Edit to say: Make sure chicken pieces are dry before placing in oil:)

Edited May 26, 2011 by ChefCrash (log)

[budrichard]

I've tried 'buffalo legs' but the much thicker leg is not as palatable as the wing 'drum' because of the meat to sauce coating ratio and other subjective information that I can't quantify.

Each whole chicken that i purchase has its wings removed and stored in a freezer bag until I have enough for a meal for us.-Dick

[Rico]

No love for the buffalo drumstick? I think it's a great idea.

Agreed. In fact, we call it the elephant wing. We make it in a style of a particular tacky 'breastaurant (rhymes with 'fooders')'- breaded, fried, then sauced. They're good luck for the Mavericks so far, too.

[scott123]

I'll echo what others have already mentioned.

You can't win without skin.

I tried cooking breast meat in butter in a crockpot in an attempt to make it fattier and that didn't work. Buffalo sauce on breaded tenders is, imo, a very poor imitation. Sure, you get a little fat from the breading, but it ain't chicken skin.

In theory, with America's infatuation with boneless skinless breast, one would think there would be a surplus of skin, but where that skin ends up, who knows? The consumers sure aren't seeing it. If I could actually walk into a supermarket and buy chicken skin for less than $2 a lb. that would make my decade.

Chicken wings are like the new lobster. Who would I have thunk it? Maybe once a year I'll splurge on wings, but, on a daily basis, I make do with thighs. I take the thighs, bake them up so the skin is crispy, debone them and then remove about 2/3rds of the meat. When I sauce them and roll the skin around the remaining meat, I get a a fairly pleasant, slightly wing-ish experience. But I'm also left with skinless meat, which, with hot sauce... is pretty darn mediocre. I get one bite of semi-bliss to two bites of mediocrity.

The biggest upside to my buffalo thighs is that I can almost always get thighs on sale for $.99/lb and be comfortably fed with about 75 cents worth, rather than eating a solid $8 worth of wings and still end up feeling hungry.

[BadRabbit]

I ran a restaurant while I was in college in the early 90s and we regularly sold wings for 10c\piece and that wasn't even using them as a loss leader. We actually made a little money at that price. Now the special price in that same college town is 600% higher (they run even higher than that when not on special). Inflation over that period is about 60%. So wings have risen at 10x the speed of inflation. That is insane.

Edited May 27, 2011 by BadRabbit (log)