Wow, it’s another Friday! Hello, gorgeous!
To shake things up, Greg and I bought a foam topper for our horrible mattress, put it on the living room floor and slept there. I can’t say it was the best idea looking back but it was different, reminded me of old times where we slept on our air mattress in our old apartment, when Minnesota seemed like just a short visit instead of our new location. It took a month for me to realize we weren’t going back.
I know that today is World Nutella Day and I did, purely by coincidence, buy a jar. (I had no idea until earlier this week-I just don’t pay attention to that kind of thing.) I found a few recipes that I intended to try but with the Super Bowl coming, decided to make quintessential recipes for that instead.
Today is all about wings. I’m not a wing maker, as much as Greg would like me to be, I just expect to eat wings out. There are dozens of places here catered to excellent wings so I rely on their “expertise” usually. I’m not as big a fan of them as Greg. He would recommend, in the Fort Wayne, Indiana area, Wings & Ribs and has a number of places that he wouldn’t recommend but I’ll leave those out. I sought out the advice of those experienced and tested wing makers, read at the kitchn/serious eats, with the baked versus fried article. I opted to bake. I also found what was supposed to be a spicy baked Indian style and took Food & Wine’s advice, and made both classic and Jamaican jerk wings (but using the kitchn’s methods instead).
We were disappointed with the Indian spiced wings…probably due to no butter (and no flavor) so I will skip passing along that one (but they look pretty in the picture-oh well). It was too bad because they took the longest to marinate…which I’d read really doesn’t add that much flavor. The other recipes, classic and jerk, only required an hour and only a small amount of sauce which left the rest to smother on later. I didn’t coat the wings in flour but will do that next time for a crispy skin. Both turned out delicious, not quite as good as those at a few other places though. Of course, when we have wings, we have blue cheese dressing so I would recommend that (or Ranch) and maybe some celery sticks for the side.
Have a great weekend!
Baked Classic Hot and Jamaican Jerk Wings
Makes 5 lbs. of wings
Ingredients:
5 lbs, chicken wings, divided by the two styles (drums, drumettes, wingettes work too but adjust cooking time)
4 tbsp canola or vegetable oil
salt/pepper
Classic Sauce: for 2 ½ lbs. of wings
1 cup Frank’s Redhot sauce
1 stick butter
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp salt/ or to taste
cayenne pepper-optional
Jamaican Jerk Sauce: for 2 ½ lbs. of wings
6 tbsp Frank’s Redhot sauce
1/2 tsp salt
6 tbsp butter
1 tbsp Jamaican jerk seasoning
thyme leaves-garnish-optional
Blue cheese or Ranch dressing
Celery sticks
Preheat the oven to 400. Grease a baking sheet with oil.
Cut the wings into 3 pieces by cutting through the joints to separate. Don’t cut through the bone. (I didn’t do this to save on time but recommend it.) You can get rid of the wing tips because they have little to no meat. Rinse the wings, pat dry and toss in a bowl with the oil, salt and pepper. (You can do this in 2 bowls, 2 ½ lbs each, for the two sauces.)
Sauces: Melt the butter over low heat in a pan. Add the Frank’s sauce, Worcestershire sauce, salt and optional cayenne pepper. In another pan, melt the other 6 tbsp of butter and add Frank’s sauce, salt and jerk seasoning.
Toss each set of wings with a quarter of only one sauce; make sure not to use much so that you can smother them later in the remaining sauce.
Arrange the wings on the sheet (skin-side up), not too crowded. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown but be sure to check before that time just in case they baked faster. Use tongs to turn each piece over and bake another 15 to 20 minutes. (If you are using wingettes or drumettes, lower the cooking time by half and keep an eye on them throughout the baking process.) The wings should come out crisp. Toss the wings with their sauce; be sure to place them with the correct sauce if using the 2 kinds. Garnish the Jamaican jerk wings with thyme. Serve with blue cheese or Ranch dressing and some celery sticks.
A, you wrote this post just for me didn’t you?!
Of course!