Most people call this style of wing Buffalo, and indeed my recipe is based on my experiences eating Buffalo wings. But as my version includes a couple of ingredients beyond the scope of standard Buffalo wings, I simply call them wings so as not to upset purists.
I start with a frozen bag of wing sections to be found at most supermarkets.
I fry in grape seed oil, for its neutrality, heat capability, and assumed health benefits.
I put the wings in the fryer in the largest batch it can accommodate without drastically reducing the oil temp (not more then 15 or 20 degrees upon submersion) and cook them one minute per wing in the batch plus one minute.
I put them in the fryer cold and undressed. I consider anyone who breads or even flours his or her wings foolish; a big part of a great wing is the sauce sticking to the crisp, unadorned skin.
When I pull them out of the oil, I put the wings on a rack in a roasting pan with paper towels under it to let the skin crisp a little. If you have a basket fryer and can set them up out of the oil for a period of 1-2 minutes, this will have the same effect.
Next, I toss the wings in the biggest bowl I have with a small amount of sauce, enough to completely cover. The big bowl helps because you can completely coat the wings with a flick of your wrist and then the extra sauce stays behind for the next batch.
Then I just put the dressed wings in a big serving bowl and serve with bleu cheese dressing and celery sticks.
The sauce:
One stick of butter
Two large bottles cheap hot sauce, store brand is fine, you want it to be about chili peppers and vinegar, not much more.
One bottle Tabasco sauce
5 tablespoons cayenne pepper
2-3 tablespoons dried thyme
The juice of one lemon
A dozen grinds of black pepper.
Combine all the ingredients in a small saucepot and bring to a simmer, then back off just enough to keep warm.
This is the base sauce; it is honestly not very hot at all. To jazz it up, when you put the sauce in the bowl with the wings add things like Dave’s Insanity, or Blair’s Death, or Da Bomb Final Solution, then toss like normal. It is up to you take it where you want it to go. The sauce is just about good flavor and the ingredients lay a good foundation of the various burns: the Tabasco attacking, the cayenne slow and building, and the black pepper little spikes.
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