Extra hot chicken

For a long time I had avoided deep fried foods, much for the same unguided reason I avoided the fat in food, I was brainwashed to believe fat in means fat on, not the reality that it’s just a source of calories no different from the other calories going in, maybe a bit more dense in calories and possibly not as nutritional. I also had the impression that fried food equal greasy fatty food, this maybe true for things such as french fries which can be a whopping 50% fat by weight and food cooked incorrectly, but not at all the case for foods cooked at the correct temperature. The other main reason for the avoidance, or at least at home, has always been the smell, but get a thermometer, a heavy based pan, don’t overcrowd it, and that shouldn’t be a problem either, heck even the crappy domestic extraction system should be enough to deal with it.

So, deep fried chicken, getting thoughts of poorly cooked greasy fast food? Well, don’t, think crisp, crunchy, steaming hot, not at all greasy, fiery hot spicy goodness that will leave you red in the face and dripping with sweat.

3 Chicken legs, portioned to thigh and drum
Canola oil


Brine
All percentages are by weight (eg. 1000 ml water, 50 grams salt)
Water
5% Salt
2.5% Cayenne powder
1.5% Garlic powder
1.5% Onion powder
2.5% Chilli flakes
0.5% Hot sauce
0.5% Morita Chilli

Heat the water in a pan and dissolve the salt, add all the other ingredients and cover, let it cool to room temperature. Place a large zip lock bag in a bowl and add the chicken, pour in the brine and remove as much air as possible while sealing the bag. Place in the fridge for 12–24 hours.


Dredge
Flour
Salt
Cayenne Pepper*
Chilli Flakes*
*The more you add the hotter it’ll be, so add heaps!

Remove the chicken from the brine and pat dry, toss in the dredge, shake off excess flour and place on a tray with a rack on it. Refrigerate for an hour, uncovered. Do not dispose of the remaining dredge yet.

Egg Wash
1 part Egg
2 parts Water
Salt


Cooking

• Remove the chicken from the fridge and let sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes.
• Heat several inches of oil in a heavy based cast iron pot to 190ºC.
• Dip the chicken pieces in the egg wash, shake off any excess, toss in the dredge again, and shake off any excess flour.
• Cook the chicken in batches, carefully laying the chicken away from you in the oil, cook until the internal temp reaches 65-70ºC (depending on how paranoid you are, the temp will rise at least 5ºC while resting).
• Remove the pieces to a rack, not paper towels, to drain and rest while you cook the remaining chicken.

Serve with some sour pickles and lashings of hot sauce (if you can take the heat).

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Bonus, oven baked extra hot wings


Brine
Water
5% salt
Chilli flakes*
Cayenne pepper*
*As much as you can handle, more the better I say.

As above, place wings in cooled brine in zip lock bag and refrigerate for 12–24 hours.

Dredge
2 parts flour
1 part fine semolina
smoked paprika
cayenne

• Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. 
• Shake excess brine off the chicken and place in the bowl. 
• Cover tightly with a couple layers of cling film and shake (you could do this in a bag), make sure the chicken is evenly coated. 
• Place chicken on a rack set over a sheet pan and refrigerate uncovered for at least an hour. 
• Use a spritzer to coat the chicken in a fine film of olive oil, or gentle toss the chicken in a bowl with a little oil (take care not to dislodge too much coating). 
• Use a sieve with some fine semolina to put a light coating on both sides of the chicken. 
• Cook in a preheated 230ºC oven for 40–60 minutes, turning every 20 minutes. 
• Add lashings of habanero hot sauce and devour.

Yes, yes, wings again

I like having a little decompression time when I get back from holiday before I head back to work, so coming back from Melbourne to a long weekend at home is perfect. I had a batch of Saison to bottle and another batch ready to brew, a hoppy little pale ale, and gives me a chance to get out of holiday mode. I'm not one usually to eat 3 square a day at home, but on holiday I always seem to manage breakfast lunch and dinner, and with the choices available it's hard to resist! Town mouse was definitely a highlight, the food is so crazy good it's hard to put into words, but if you're ever there I and it's still on the menu I highly recommend the fermented veal tartare. The bbq on the last day was also memorable, but then sitting out in the 33°C sun with a cold beer and a tray full of collard greens, pulled pork and brisket is hard to surpass. I could probably go on and on, as it feels like all we did was drink, eat and move on to the next place, with what we managed to put away at Chin Chin I'm surprised we haven't come back several sizes larger. It was also great to get out of the city and into Yarra valley, I got quite touristy and bought a t-shirt from White Rabbit brewery, Little creatures sister which is a must get to in the city also, any way I should stop before I rabbit on for too long.


This is a pretty simple throw together, well it helps if you can sort the wings the day before as this does result in a superior crust. In a bowl toss together chicken wings, semolina flour, cumin, coriander, paprika and chilli powder. Cover and refrigerate, toss now and then to make sure the wings are fully coated. The next day, preheat the oven to 220°C, line a tray with baking paper, sprinkle in some fresh semolina flour on the chicken and toss, arrange on the tray and cook for 20 minutes, turn and cook for a further 20. Remove from the oven and toss through some hot sauce (even better hot sauce and melted butter) and serve with a crisp slaw.


I prepared some chipotle mayo to toss the wings through, this is an eggless version as can't serve raw eggs at home at the mo, take 4 chipotle in adobo sauce and place in a jar that can fit an immersion blender, add about 1/4 of a cup of peanut oil and about the same of cider vinegar, blend together and adjust the salt. Sprinkle in about 1/4 of a tsp of locust bean gum and xanthan gum, blend for about 1 minute, until the dressing has emulsified, adjust the amount of xanthan gum to thicken the "mayo" but don't go too crazy with it as it will become snotty.

Sprouts, mayonnaise & chicken

Get sprouting! Well I have been anyway, I’ve been getting into salads, especially heavy on the celery, greens and all, using ingredients I haven’t really thought of using before, like whero peas, wheatberries and quinoa, but most of all I’ve really been digging the humble sprout. The thing about the sprout is you have to have a little forethought or a production line set up as quite frankly they are ridiculously overpriced to buy pre-sprouted. On a positive note, sprouting is easy as pie.

Place quarter of a cup of mung, puy lentils or whero peas in a clean glass jar, rinse and drain a couple of times and then fill up with water, cover with a tea towel and leave overnight. The next morning, drain off the liquid, give the jar a jostle so the seeds aren’t languishing in a pool of water. Repeat the rinse and drain for 3-5 days until the sprouts have got enough sprout for you, 2 days is usually enough for a nice short sprout, but I wouldn’t leave it longer than 5. They’ll keep covered in the vegetable crisper for a couple of days.

I was going to assume that you know how to make mayonnaise before I got into the coleslaw, but I figure I should give it a quick once over. This method is for a stick blender. Use a jar that is just big enough to fit your blender, it’s preferable that the opening is smaller in width than the body of the jar. Add one egg yolk to the jar along with a dash of cider vinegar and a teaspoon of Dijon mustard. Start running the blender and slowly drip in some neutral oil, I use a mix of olive and canola(rapeseed), when the emulsion has formed you can start pouring in the oil more liberally, for a lighter mayonnaise you can alternate between oil and water, you should be able to get about 50% water content. Taste and season with salt and vinegar. If the mayonnaise doesn’t thicken try adding more oil or another yolk, if the emulsion breaks or doesn't form, pour the mix into a jug and in the jar add an extra egg yolk and slowly blitz in the broken mayonnaise. It should keep in the fridge for a couple of months.


Anyway back on track to the slaw, take a couple of tablespoons of mayonnaise and mix in a crushed clove of garlic, let it sit in the fridge a while so the garlic can mellow a bit. Thinly slice a fennel bulb and red onion, on a heavy bias slice some celery and its leaves, slice the larger green leaves thinly and just roughly tear the smaller yellow ones. Toss it all together in a bowl with some sprouts, crushed pumpkin seeds, smoked salt and the garlic laced mayonnaise.


An ideal match to the crisp cool slaw is a hot and spicy chicken wing, or in this case drumstick, I've covered hot wings so many times on here it's not funny but this time it's my oven "fried" chicken drumsticks. You end up with a crusty crisp coating and fall apart moist flesh below. In a large bowl add a good few tablespoons of tapioca starch, you can get this from a good Asian supermarket or here in New Zealand pick up arrowroot from the baking section of the supermarket, it's not arrowroot but just tapioca starch, mix in a sprinkling of salt, smoked paprika, hot chilli powder/flakes, spice it up as hot or mild as you like, and coriander powder. Toss the drumsticks in the mix to coat and place on a plate, cover and refrigerate overnight. When you're ready to cook, preheat the oven to 220°C, prepare another mix of tapioca starch and spices, toss the drumsticks in the powder to coat, arrange on a baking tray and cook for 30–45 minutes turning twice. If you really want to go for extra lush drumsticks melt some butter with hot sauce and crushed garlic and when the chicken is fresh out of the oven toss in the butter sauce, you won't regret it but your hips might.

Chicken wings the egg white version

I do seem to have lot of chicken wing recipes on here, this has to be version six I’ve published on here, and I wouldn't even want to start with the numerous experiments that haven’t made it to the site, I don’t have enough digits. This is a baked version a bit like the hot wings version I did a while back they’ll spend a little while in the fridge so preparing the night before is probably the best, but at a pinch six hours before cooking should be enough.

500g chicken wings
1 large egg whites
2 tsp baking soda
Chilli flakes
Salt

Prepare a baking tray that will fit in your fridge with a rack and set aside.

Whisk the egg whites until they have increased in volume but still runny, we’re not looking for soft peaks just a little volume so coating the wings is easier.

Add the baking soda, chilli flakes (to taste) and salt (about a teaspoon). Whisk together.

Toss the wings through the egg white mixture and transfer to the baking tray, make sure there is space between the wings. Transfer to the fridge uncovered and leave overnight, or prepare in the morning for the evening.

Pre-heat the oven to 230ºC, cook the wings for 15 minutes, turn the wings over and cook for 15 minutes more, turn over again and another 10–15 minutes depending on their size and how well you like you chicken cooked.


Toss the hot cooked wings in your favourite hot sauce, I’m quite a fan of Tapatío hot sauce at the moment, and eat immediately or at least once they’re cool enough for you to handle. A finger bowl and paper towels are a must.

Wings, version... I've lost count

The latest foray into the realms of the chicken wing was a wee while ago, and also not my own creation but rather Alton Browns rather delicious buffalo wings, which although had lovely crisp skin and lashings of butter-hot sauce-garlic awesomeness, they lacked what I truly desire when it comes to a hot wing, crunch. I really liked the method of steaming the wings, and refrigerating before baking, the steaming encourages the fat in the skin to render so when placed in the hot oven it runs out and fries/crisps the skin on the way, and the refrigeration tightens the skin, in my other methods I use the resting/refrigeration to help the starch in the coating to hydrate. I figured I could Frankenstein a few methods together and end up with the benefits of the steamed wing combined with that crunch I was missing, and maybe embellish with coating in an extravagant butter-hot sauce combo.

Ingredients
Chicken wings
1 part semolina flour
1 part potato starch
salt, chilli powder & coriander powder to taste

Get a pot of water on to the boil, and pile the chicken wings in steamer, set the steamer in the pot and let it bathe in the vapour for 15 minutes, it’s quite nice to add a few aromatics to the water, such as garlic and the like.


While the wings are steaming mix together the dry ingredients, then carefully remove the chicken and toss in the flour mixture. Arrange the wings on a rack on a sheet pan and refrigerate for at least an hour.


Preheat the oven to 220°C, place a sheet of baking paper below the rack and cook for 15-20 minutes, flip and cook for another 15-20 minutes.

To really gild the lily, and I highly recommend it, toss the hot crunchy wings in a mixture of melted butter, garlic and hot sauce, probably not that good for you but damn tasty.

Hot Wings

It just happened that our national day fell on a Wednesday this year, and of course just by chance Superbowl Sunday, happened to fall on the Monday before it, so it seemed liked a good excuse to take a 5 day weekend (or is that a 2 day week?), plus who needs a reason to pull out the nachos, wings, and other Americana food and blob out in front of a 60 minute game that lasts 4 hours, not dissing, I quite enjoy the game. Anyway the plan was hot wings, I was thinking of my crunchy, spicy, deep fried wings, but as it always seems to happen best laid plans and all, someone tweeted a link to a recipe for Buffalo Wings by the Good Eats man himself, Alton Brown, these were oven baked and intriguingly steamed before hand, well that was going save me a lot of hassle deep-frying.

So, get a pot of water on to the boil, and load up a steamer with some chicken wings, set the steamer in the pot and let it bathe in the vapour for 20 minutes, it’s quite nice to add a few aromatics to the water, such as garlic and the like.

Set up a baking tray with a rack and line with paper towels, when the wings have steamed transfer them to the tray and refrigerate for about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 220˚C, swap out the paper towels with baking paper and transfer the baking tray to the hot oven and cook for 20 minutes, then flip and cook for a further 20 minutes.

Toss the wings in hot sauce and serve, a finger bowl is a good idea. Alternatively, like the original recipe, you can toss them in a mixture of butter, garlic and hot sauce, which is nice, luxurious etc, but needless calories in my opinion.

Fried wings

Wings again! But this time fried not baked, not quite as healthy, but hey you only live once. These are pretty straightforward to make, no faffing about with batters and the like, just marinate the wings in buttermilk, with a few extras, then dredge in a mix of potato starch and flour, and deep fry for a couple of minutes. For an extra spicy twist toss the crunchy cooked wings in some hot chipotle sauce. Devour with a cold beer and crisp cooling coleslaw.

For 500 grams of wings:
250ml Buttermilk
2-3 Chipotles
150g Potato flakes
150g Flour
Salt and Pepper


Blend the chipotles and buttermilk, season well with salt and pepper, stir in the wings, cover and leave in the fridge for a few hours or overnight. Buttermilk is a great tenderiser and will do wonders to the wings.

Blitz the flour and potato flakes in a food processor with some salt and pepper to make a fine powder. Toss the wings in the flour mix, making sure to shake off any excess marinade first, set the coated wings aside ready to cook.


Heat the deep frying oil to 180°C, rice bran is good. Fry the wings in batches until they’re floating on the surface and have an internal temperature of 70°C. The mini ‘drumsticks’ should take 5-10 minutes and the wings 4-7 minutes.

Spicy Chicken Wings Mk IV

Cooking, or at least developing a recipe, or a dish, or a snack, or even just figuring out just how you like your grilled cheese, is always a work in progress, you’re never likely to get it right the first try, or even the second, time and patience is your friend. I’ve recently started a hot and spicy affair with chicken wings, trying to nail the perfect crunchy spicy wing, a good crust, moist perfect flesh and of course hot! Easier said than done, you have to get the ratio of flour right, choose the right spices, should I just use wheat flour? Deep fry? Oven bake? I previously wrote about mark 1, but now with mark 3 behind me, I am almost there, and this recipe (mark 4) is as close to perfect as I can get, in a perfect world of course.

The quantities below are based on 500g of chicken wings.


Spice Mix
10g Coriander seed
10g Cumin seed
5g Chili flakes (hot)
5g Sweet smoked paprika
5g Salt

• Grind all the ingredients together, a blender is handy but a mortar and pestle will do the job. 
• Sieve the resulting mixture, saving both the resulting powder and coarse separately. You should have about 16 grams of powder, if you’re off by a gram or two don’t worry, but much more than that put the coarse back in the blender and grind more. 
• Mix the 16g of powder with 5g of the coarse, about a 3:1 powder to coarse ratio. Set this aside, and either discard the remaining coarse materials or seal up in a jar and store.

The powder separated from the coarse chaff.


16g powder & 5g coarse chaff.


Coating
25g Fine semolina flour
25g Plain wheat flour
21g Spice mix (the 16g powder + 5g coarse from above)

• In a large bowl mix all of the ingredients together, if you have more than 20-21g of spice mix adjust the flour accordingly, 5 parts flour mix to 2 parts spice mix. 

Getting it all together

• Pat the chicken wings dry with some paper towels, and lightly coat with some oil, canola is fine, I usually just use the aerosol cooking oil that I spray the sheet pans with, it’s canola and as it’s a spray I can get a nice even light coating. 
• Add the wings to the bowl with the spiced flour and cover with a double layer of clingfilm. 
• Gently toss the wings in the flour, making sure to coat thoroughly, you may wish to give another little spray with oil to help, but it’s not always necessary.
• Place the bowl in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, this will allow the starch in the flours to hydrate, making for a stronger coating that will help trap in steam from the wings as they cook, and less likely to fall off.

Cooking

• Preheat the oven to 200-210°C, let it sit at temperature for a good 15 minutes before adding the chicken. 
• Line a sheet pan with baking paper and spray with some non-stick spray (yes the double up of non-stickiness is needed) 
• Arrange the chicken on the pan, allowing room around each wing for airflow. 
• Cook for 15 minutes, and then remove from the oven and turn each wing over, cook for a further 15 minutes. 

Note: for extra crispy wings, and for people not watching their weight, spray the wings when placing them on the sheet pan, and again when you flip them. 

Serve up with some hot sauce, a finger bowl and lots of napkins.

Spicy chicken wings

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.