Nothing much can beat a humble spicy chicken wing, especially with cold beer chasing it down, even better if the weather is fine and you get to enjoy the sun beating down (not long now Wellington) as you guzzle down cold beers, putting out the ever increasing heat of the unctuous spicy wings. Well ok so the weather’s not quite up to par yet, and most of my spicy wing and beer consumption has taken place in the sheltered warm embrace of Fork and Brewer, but sometimes you’re stuck at home, and if like me, you’re out in the food culture wasteland that is Karori, where haute cuisine is the choice between Fush’n’Chips or plastic fantastic Subway. So we make do with the situation we have, too lazy to go out at night, we stay in, wrapped up against the cold warming ourselves with spicy, greasy, chicken flesh, thanking our lucky stars we stocked up on some decent beer and don’t have to rely on the local for our tipple.
You can cook these however you like, I oven baked them with the help of a little canola oil spray, you could deep fry them though if you prefer.
500 grams Chicken Wings, or as we call them nibbles
10 grams Cumin seeds
10 grams Coriander seeds
5 grams Sweet Smoked Paprika
5 grams Kosher salt
5 grams hot fine chili flakes
20 grams flour
Preheat the oven to 210ºC, and spray a sheet pan with cooking spray.
Grind all the dry ingredients, sans flour, using mortar and pestle, you could however use a blender if you’re inclined that way. When thoroughly ground, but not powdery, a little texture is a good thing, mix in the flour.
Pat the chicken dry, and very, very lightly coat in oil, and mix together with the spice mix, firmly pressing it into the wings.
Arrange the coated wings on a tray, then give it a light spray with oil, this helps crisp up the coating but is optional. Cook for 15 minutes, remove from the oven, turn over all the wings and cook for another 15 minutes. Serve up with some demonically hot chili sauce and lots of paper towels.
