2.20.2016

chicken wings

There's nothing ground breaking here, but it is a reliable method for sublime wings.

A couple weeks ago I poached a 4 lb chicken with a bunch of veggies to make preparations for chicken and noodles.  As I stripped the carcass of the meat, the skin fell off in large sheets.  I couldn't resist, I needed to do something with it.  I'm not a big fan of chicken skin, but decided to place it on parchment on baking sheet and bake it at 250F.  Towards the end of the baking, I sat by the oven window and watched the darkened skin bake.  There was a uniform bubbling across the surface as it cooked into a near potato chip crispness.  Even at 250F, it was actually cooking like it was frying in oil.  That chicken skin was so fatty and thick, it served is its own deep fryer!
Just out of the oven, crackly potato chip-like rendered chicken skin.
For kicks, I took some wings out of the freezer.  I had a big bargain bag of wings and drummies.  I took a few pieces out, dumped them in water about 15 minutes to thaw them, dried them off with paper towel and placed them on a fry pan, skin side up, with a sprinkle of coarse salt, pepper and squirt of Louisiana hot sauce and baked them at 250F for 2 full hours.  Internal showed at least 180F after an hour but I let them go, wondering if the cloak of thick chicken skin would protect them from getting too dry.  I finished off the wings with a 550F broiler for about 10 minutes (DO NOT LEAVE THEM UNATTENDED!).  
thawed and seasoned
250F for 2h, followed by a 10 minute broil.  SO CRISP!
I will never cook a wing any differently ever again.  Do this.

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