Wing sauce

[TylerK]

I'm likely going to be frying up a batch of chicken wings for dinner tonight, but I don't want to douse them with the usual Frank's Red Hot or a commercial BBQ sauce. Do any of you have recommendations for a good sauce other than the typical buffalo/BBQ/Honey-Garlic? It can be home made, "semi home made" or store bought.

[Keith_W]

You could use Sriracha.

[huiray]

Consider doing this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/07/dining/07fried.html

[huiray]

Or this... http://food52.com/recipes/6795-hanoi-inspired-fried-chicken-wings

or this... http://en.kokotaru.com/2009/05/fried-chicken-wings-vietnamese-style/

or this... http://www.thatssomichelle.com/2013/02/vietnamese-cilantro-lime-chicken-wings.html

or this... http://www.theravenouscouple.com/2013/02/fish-sauce-wings-pok-pok-wings-recipe.html

[TylerK]

Sriracha sounds like a good idea. The taste is great, but may end up being a little too spicy for me in that quantity. Do you think it would work if I cut it with some mustard or something like that?

Thanks for the links huiray. Lots of great ideas in there.

[FeChef]

Sriracha sounds like a good idea. The taste is great, but may end up being a little too spicy for me in that quantity. Do you think it would work if I cut it with some mustard or something like that?

Thanks for the links huiray. Lots of great ideas in there.

You could cut it with some Heinz chili sauce. Its a similar flavor profile and is very mild. Im sure some Sriracha purist will disagree but its better then using mustard imo.

[FeChef]

Also on the subject of heinz chili sauce, for a sweet tangy wing sauce, mix one jar of heinz chili sauce with one jar of plum sauce.

Of course test a small batch to make sure you like the combination.

[pastameshugana]

Sriracha with maple syrup is amazing - I actually did this on a turkey breast last TG:

Heat the maple syrup, melt butter into it, add lots of sriracha. That was without question the finest bird I've ever eaten. And I think it would be great on wings.

/humblebrag

[huiray]

I wonder about this fixation on sriracha sauce ("Rooster Sauce"!!) especially in the USA... I find it "meh". For that matter, are we talking about the Thai sriracha or the Californian sriracha?

Edited May 25, 2013 by huiray (log)

[annachan]

A miso based sauce would be good. Mix some miso with mirin and sugar as a base, than add seasonings that you like. Shichimi, garlic, sesame oil, citrus zest, etc.

Worcestershire sauce is also good. Add some soy sauce, garlic, ginger and a little sugar.

[jsager01]

I wonder about this fixation on sriracha sauce ("Rooster Sauce"!!) especially in the USA... I find it "meh". For that matter, are we talking about the Thai sriracha or the Californian sriracha?

i also do wonder....

try the KFC recipe... ie Korean Fried Chicken, for a change

ETA: here's link for KFC recipe http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/10/korean-fried-chicken-recipe.html

Edited May 25, 2013 by jsager01 (log)

[huiray]

I wonder about this fixation on sriracha sauce ("Rooster Sauce"!!) especially in the USA... I find it "meh". For that matter, are we talking about the Thai sriracha or the Californian sriracha?

i also do wonder....

try the KFC recipe... ie Korean Fried Chicken, for a change

ETA: here's link for KFC recipe http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/10/korean-fried-chicken-recipe.html

Heh.

That particular recipe for KFC (Korean Fried Chicken) is interesting - it does a single deep-fry only, not the double deep-fry usual with KFC. One commentator asked if the use of vodka in the batter accounted for only one deep-fry being used but never got an answer from the author of the recipe. Hmm, the pic of the finished product also looks like it ended up with somewhat more fried batter covering than normal for KFC. The NYT article I linked to above talks about the process for KFC in a general way.

Here're some other links (including the Saveur recipe) that may be of interest. (also compare the photos of the fried chicken pieces before the saucing with the photo in the seriouseats recipe)

http://mothernaturesays.blogspot.com/2010/09/korean-fried-chicken-recipe.html

http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Korean-Fried-Chicken

http://www.slashfood.com/2007/02/09/midnight-snack-cold-korean-fried-chicken/

In any case the dips/sauces in these articles ought to provide alternatives for the "conventional" fried chicken wings the OP was asking about. :-)

[nickrey]

Here's another good Korean Fried Chicken recipe. This one does the multi cook. The sauce uses gochujang, soy sauce, rice vinegar, honey, sesame oil, ginger, garlic and castor sugar. It is very tasty. Edited May 25, 2013 by nickrey (log)

[TylerK]

Thanks for all the great comments. Unfortunately for some reason egullet stopped sending me emails so I missed a lot of them before I did the wings.

I ended up dredging them in a mixture of seasoned cornstarch and rice flour and did a single fry at 375F for about 15 minutes. I've tried the two step frying in the past but they ended up coming out dry (my fault I'm sure). With the single fry and the starch coating they came out nice and crispy and still juicy on the inside.

For the sauce I did a Dijon/honey/garlic/bourbon mixture and spiced it up a bit with a habanero based hot sauce (just a few dashes because I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to hot foods).

The leftover sauce was great with the ribs I did on Saturday night.

Edited May 27, 2013 by TylerK (log)