eG Cook-Off #88: Wings

[Duvel]

The Cook-Offs are - for me at least - also an excuse and incentive to step outside outside of one’s comfort zone. Those of you that read a few of my posts may have noticed that my comfort zone is pretty much Asian cuisine(s) and thus I wanted to avoid my first chicken wing entry to come from that continent (#2 of course is set) …

 

So tonight something completely different: Peruvian chicken wings. I set my heart on trying that during my prep for the Cook-Off and today I followed through. Reading through a few recipes online and somewhat liked this one. I did not follow it to the letter, but somewhat winged (see what I did there ?).

 

So: 1 kg chicken wings (organic, 7€/kg), doused with 10 g salt & 10 g baking powder, refrigerated for 4 h. Half of the wings were left unadulterated (for the family), half was mixed with cumin, smoked paprika, garlic, vinegar and a pinch of pepper. 15 min on a rack at 250 oC convection, turned, then 25 min at 200 oC.

 

In the meantime made the sauce from a fresh green chili, a teaspoon of yuzu kosho, two garlic cloves, juice of half a lemon, a heaped tablespoon of full fat yoghurt and 75 g mayo (Hellmans). Salt & white pepper. Pureed …

 

And I fried some green bananas in lieu of unavailable plantains …

 

Fresh from the oven …

 

 

Plated …

 

 

… and the familiy’s version. Originally. Then they tried the Peruvian version (spicy !) and declared it to be better and finished my portion 🙄

 

Edited January 12, 2022 by Duvel (log)

[heidih]

I like the green sauce. The wings look like they have a good crisp. The yuzu makes sense as Peru has a lot of post WW2 immigrants. How did the green bananas go for you versus plantains? Love your family's drift to the Peruvians

[Anna N]

40 minutes ago, Duvel said:

In the meantime made the sauce from a fresh green chili, a teaspoon of yuzu kosho, two garlic cloves, juice of half a lemon, a heaped tablespoon of full fat yoghurt and 75 g mayo (Hellmans). Salt & white pepper. Pureed …

Ya just couldn’t resist a little Asian with your Peruvian could ya?  😂

[Duvel]

44 minutes ago, heidih said:

I like the green sauce. The wings look like they have a good crisp. The yuzu makes sense as Peru has a lot of post WW2 immigrants. How did the green bananas go for you versus plantains? Love your family's drift to the Peruvians

I felt the same about the inclusion. Most recipes call for aji amarillo, which I had not at hand. Yuzu kosho provided some fruity elements, some fermented touches and of course a bit of heat, so I felt it would be a decent choice. Overall the green sauce was great - I am looking forward to add the leftovers to some Gyros I’ll have for lunch tomorrow.

 

Wings were moderately crisp. I am looking forward to the comparison with “real” fried wings that I plan as my second entry for this Cook-Off.

 

The green bananas were fine - a tad less starchy and a bit sweeter than plantains but far more easy to obtain. It was somehow the only decend side I could think of …

 

The only thing I missed was a decent Pisco Sour for dessert. I enjoyed a buttery, vanilla-y Irish whiskey on the rocks instead and felt good nonetheless 😉

 

[Smithy]

5 hours ago, Shelby said:

Dashed into the grocery store yesterday in the big city.  Not too many people in there and we wore our KN95's.  Got to the chicken section and these were the only brand of wings available.

 

 

3.99 a lb. is ridiculously expensive in our opinion.  Ronnie remembers buying wings for around sixty five cents a lb. when they were on sale and around 95 cents a pound when regularly priced.  Needless to say, these didn't end up in our cart lol.

 

I have some wings frozen in the downstairs freezer and because of this topic, and the big game last night, I unearthed some--I think I have one more package left.

 

Nothing earthshattering about my method.

 

Soak in buttermilk

 

 

Then toss in a bag of flour seasoned with Lawry's salt and lots of black pepper

 

 

Shallow fry in cast iron (forgot to take a picture)

 

We wanted the classic hot wings so I took some of this sauce that our friend gifted us and mixed it with melted butter

 

 

And tossed the wings in it

 

 

Blue cheese dressing on the side  

 

 

 

@Shelby , that looks wonderful! I'm glad you didn't settle for the Heritage Farms chicken, for the reasons @btbyrd and @chileheadmike cite below.

 

3 hours ago, btbyrd said:

I'd never seen that brand of chicken before a few days ago. I'd also never seen carrageenan in raw chicken before. $3.99/lb is too much, especially when 15% of it is dreck.

 

2 hours ago, chileheadmike said:

 

I bought a whole Heritage chicken a few weeks ago because my wife wanted roast chicken for dinner and that was the only choice. That thing was beat up. Leg broken and terrible quality.  I felt sorry for that chicken. Never again.  

 

chileheadmike, thanks for confirming my suspicions about that particular brand.

 

My experience in looking for chicken wings for this Cook-Off was slightly better than Shelby's, but it was a search. As others have noted, wings have become quite pricey, beginning (I think) in the 1980's or '90's when the Buffalo Wings craze began. Right now, at Game Time, they might be even more expensive than at other times of the year. My search took me into a very nice grocery store in Yuma (Arizona), where I first spotted their Wings Bar.

 

 

Here are some of the flavors they offer:

 

 

There were a couple of other flavors that I didn't photograph: a spicy Thai chili version, I think, and boneless chicken tenders but the trays were empty anyway. Maybe that's a clue about the best sellers. I didn't buy any. I tried some a couple of weeks ago and was unimpressed. I thought he mango-habanero had too much habanero and too little mango, and the straight-up buffalo wings were okay but not great. They weren't crisp and the sauce balance didn't suit me.

 

I then wandered to the meat department, where I discovered that there were no wings to be had in a brand I would buy. I briefly considered the Heritage Farms packaging that Shelby spotted, but the carageenan, package size and price were off-putting. Then I found these in the frozen section:

 

 

These would do, maybe, but then there was this package:

 

 

"Party Wings!" I'd never heard or thought of such a label before, but it's a good description.

 

The wing sections in this package are individually glazed and look really good. At long last I found a smaller package of this brand and brought them home. I'm set to join the fun in a day or two. The cookbook Buttermilk & Bourbon: New Orleans Recipes with a Modern Flair (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) has a recipe titled "Literally the Best Fried Chicken Wings in the History of Chicken" so I think I'll start there. That recipe is one of the reasons I bought the book, oh, over a year ago. 😄

[KennethT]

For those in the US, Wild Fork Foods currently has antibiotic free, air chilled wings for $3.18/lb... and if you want the stuff with up to 15% chicken broth/carrageenan/etc, it's like $2.28 per pound

[TicTac]

2 hours ago, KennethT said:

For those in the US, Wild Fork Foods currently has antibiotic free, air chilled wings for $3.18/lb... and if you want the stuff with up to 15% chicken broth/carrageenan/etc, it's like $2.28 per pound

chicken broth/carrageenan(!!?)....in wings!?

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1242073/

 

I have never heard of that shit until now.  And companies are putting it into meat - to what end!?

 

What ever happened to a good old butcher who just sells....wings.

 

WTF is wrong with these companies.....

 

 

[Smithy]

2 hours ago, TicTac said:

chicken broth/carrageenan(!!?)....in wings!?

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1242073/

 

I have never heard of that shit until now.  And companies are putting it into meat - to what end!?

 

What ever happened to a good old butcher who just sells....wings.

 

WTF is wrong with these companies.....

 

 

 

Butchers still exist, if you know where to look, but the major grocery chains don't seem to hire them. We know of a small market that has a surprisingly good meat counter, about 100 miles from here. If we pass that way in the next month or so, I plan to buy one of their special bags of wings: $10 for 10 pounds, or some such. They won't be as nicely prepped and trimmed as the "Party Wings" I bought (note that those are already separated into flats and drummies) but they'll be very fresh.

[heidih]

5 minutes ago, Smithy said:

Butchers still exist, if you know where to look, but the major grocery chains don't seem to hire them. 

I pleasantly surprised not long ago speaking with the meat guys at Ralphs/Kroger - Union butchers and so happy to be recognized as qualified tradesmen

[Smithy]

9 minutes ago, heidih said:

I pleasantly surprised not long ago speaking with the meat guys at Ralphs/Kroger - Union butchers and so happy to be recognized as qualified tradesmen

Delighted to hear it! 

[liuzhou]

Anyone do non-chicken wings?

 

I also can get goose and duck wings but have never cooked them. I guess some chicken wing recipes would cross over, but perhaps different treatments, too?

 

The duck wings are about $1.40 USD a pound; the goose more like $9.

[sartoric]

Nonno Jack’s Sunday lunch.

 

My husband Mark is one of five boys born in the late ‘50s / early ‘60s to Italian parents. After mass the family would visit their maternal grandparents for lunch. Often, nonno Jack would make chicken wings in a fresh tomato sauce. He used a pressure cooker and served the wings with pasta.

I’m scared of my pressure cooker and prefer the wings with medium grain rice.

 

The sauce is simple, olive oil, diced onion, garlic, tomato paste, white wine, blitzed fresh tomatoes and chilli flakes. I simmer them for an hour or so, until they’re very very tender.

 

Served tonight with wild rocket from our garden, dressed in the traditional Italian way. Salt, pepper, oil, vinegar, added to the greens in that order, then tossed.

 

For me, flats rule. Luckily,  M likes the drumettes. 

 

 

[Duvel]

6 hours ago, liuzhou said:

 

I also can get goose and duck wings but have never cooked them. I guess some chicken wing recipes would cross over, but perhaps different treatments, too?

Duck, duck, duck ☺️

 

From my time in Hong Kong I really miss getting a pack of Cantonese braised duck wings (lou sui aap yik, 滷水鴨翼) from one of the vendors in Central. 
 

Is there maybe any duck recipe / popular dish from Guangxi that you could apply ?

Edited January 12, 2022 by Duvel (log)

[Duvel]

1 hour ago, sartoric said:

For me, flats rule.

I knew you‘d be in our team, @sartoric. Nice background story, too - thanks !

[Duvel]

16 hours ago, Smithy said:

Then I found these in the frozen section:

 

 

These would do, maybe, but then there was this package:

 

 

"Party Wings!" I'd never heard or thought of such a label before, but it's a good description

Both package have the 15% „add-on“ disclaimer … is this the standard in the US ?

[liuzhou]

7 minutes ago, Duvel said:

Duck, duck, duck ☺️

 

Is there maybe any duck recipe / popular dish from Guangxi that you could apply ?

 

I'm not sure what people do with them round here - I guess most buy them pre-cooked on the streets or in-supermarket deli counters.

 

Guangxi doesn't really have its own cuisine (apart from a few signature noodle dishes in different cities). The south tends to be Cantonese and the north Hunan / Guizhou influenced. I live on the border between the two areas, although we lean more to the north.

 

I haven't really though a lot about wings till this topic came up - people prefer feet! Especially duck feet, but also goose web.

Wing usage I'll have to investigate further.

[gfweb]

11 minutes ago, Duvel said:

Both package have the 15% „add-on“ disclaimer … is this the standard in the US ?

it is for supermarket brands.

Higher end stuff doesn't have it.

[KennethT]

@Duvel@TicTacIn the US (and other places maybe?), unless the packaging says "air chilled", the chicken is chilled post slaughter in a brine.  If you ever see a video of a standard chicken processing plant, the chickens are transported from the slaughter/defeather area to further processing in a river of chilled brine.  So, as the chicken cools, it also absorbs some of that brine, hence the disclaimer.  Some of this brine weeps out while sitting on the grocery store shelf, hence the need for the diaper at the bottom of the package, but some stays in the meat.

 

Personally, I go for air chilled chicken every time.  Not only are there no additives, but there is also a much lower chance of contamination by bacteria since it hasn't been in a communal brine river with entrails, etc.  But it's more expensive, and many people don't necessarily have the option of choice.

[Anna N]

I am pretty sure that raw duck wings are available in the Asian grocery stores. What surprised me was that I was able to purchase frozen, fully cooked and sauced duck wings online from a regular Supermart. Apparently duck is gaining a larger market share. 

[weinoo]

43 minutes ago, KennethT said:

 

Personally, I go for air chilled chicken every time.  Not only are there no additives, but there is also a much lower chance of contamination by bacteria since it hasn't been in a communal brine river with entrails, etc.  But it's more expensive, and many people don't necessarily have the option of choice.

 

Me too.  I also disregard the "organic" label when it comes to chicken (and pork and maybe a few other things).  I've been personally moving a lot of my food buying (when I can) to just be more local. Fresh Direct deals with a number of local farms in the area, but as we know, not a lot of produce comes out of the ground in the northeast in mid-winter...that's why we have California!

[liuzhou]

44 minutes ago, Anna N said:

I am pretty sure that raw duck wings are available in the Asian grocery stores. What surprised me was that I was able to purchase frozen, fully cooked and sauced duck wings online from a regular Supermart. Apparently duck is gaining a larger market share. 

 

How do the prices for duck compare with chicken? Here, duck is considerably cheaper. It's the cheapest animal protein I can buy.  Luckily, it is also the one I prefer!

[Anna N]

4 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

 

How do the prices for duck compare with chicken? Here, duck is considerably cheaper. It's the cheapest animal protein I can buy.  Luckily, it is also the one I prefer!

Not so much here. A frozen (fresh is occasionally available but it’s always more expensive) whole duck, give or take 5 pounds, goes for $20-$25. Whole fresh chicken (very ordinary supermarket type) is $3.99 a pound at the moment. 

I can almost always get fresh duck breasts and legs. The breasts which are very tiny are around $10 each and the legs around $5 each

[liuzhou]

Wow! I'm guessing that is Canadian Dollars? I'm afraid to tell you what I pay for fresh duck breast or legs. You would weep. I don't get frozen whole duck but my local mom and pop store does a nice line in live ducks to take home and kill.

 

I will say frozen duck wings are the equivalent of $9 (CAD) for 2.5 kg.

Edited January 12, 2022 by liuzhou (log)

[KennethT]

33 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

 

How do the prices for duck compare with chicken? Here, duck is considerably cheaper. It's the cheapest animal protein I can buy.  Luckily, it is also the one I prefer!

Duck prices here are much more than chicken.  I wish I could get cheap duck.  The cheapest I can get is sometimes at a local farmer's market where a duck farmer has legs on sale - it's $5 for 2 relatively small legs - probably about 1-1/4 pounds total. That's when on sale.  Duck breast is significantly more - liek $15-20 per pound.  Whole duck is about $5 a pound but there is a lot of stuff you pay for on a whole bird that isn't used, or goes into stock, which while fantastic, $5 per pound for backs and other carcass is more than what I'd be happy to pay.  I have never seen duck wings only.  I wonder what happens to them since they sell breasts and legs individually?

[liuzhou]

2 minutes ago, KennethT said:

 I have never seen duck wings only.  I wonder what happens to them since they sell breasts and legs individually?

 

Ship them to China?