Japexican On the GO!: Some goddamn chicken wings!

My last recipe was appealing for those of you who are trying to cut down calories, go paleo or in general just trying to eat a bit healthier. If you fall into any of those categories… welll… This is not for you.

However, if you like awesome food and don't worry much about the calories you are about to ingest, well this is for you. A couple of weeks ago when the whole Pacquiao vs. Mayweather was going on, a friend of mine and I decided to stay up until late to see the fight (we live in Europe) and we decided we needed some good food (and beer) to keep us awake and interested. Our minds drifted for a while thinking of the possibilities, but every time we were thinking of junk food, we thought of Wings…Goddamn Chicken Wings.

I was not really in the mood for breaking my head and work a lot in different sauces so we settled in two. Lemon, garlic and Parmesan and Sweet Chilli. However, this recipe works as a master recipe, to your wings you will be able to add any sauce you want. And the possibilities are truly endless! Anyways, without further ado, here is the recipe. Cook, enjoy and thank me later.

Do they look awesome or what?

You will need:

Chicken Wings: Whole chicken wings work best, of course organic or free range will be the better choice, around 2 kilos.
Flour: A bit less than a cup, just for dusting before the frying.
Oil: A liter should be enough for deep frying the wings.
Salt & Pepper: Duh!
Paprika: A bit of sweet paprika, a bit of smoked paprika.
Butter: One stick for two different sauces.
Lemon: 4 lemons, or limes.
Garlic: 4 big cloves.
Sweet Chili Sauce: Available in any of your Asian markets.
Parmesan Cheese: About 150 grams of grated parmesan.

The ingredients.

Let's get to it!

First of all, clean your chicken. There might be some feather leftovers still hanging on your wings. So, clean that up!
Now it's cutting time, the big wings your butcher gave you (or bought on the supermarket) don't really look like the little pieces of heaven you know and love? Well, that is easy to fix. Take your knife and make three cuts in the joints of the wing (like shown in the photo below) you will get the two lovely pieces of wing (which I will not even try to debate here, you know, which one is better and such)
Now, take a plastic bag (freezer bags work better in my experience) and put in a cup of flour, a couple of pinches of salt and pepper, and a generous amount of both paprikas, mix.
Pour the oil in a deep pan and crank the heat up, you are looking to get 190 Degrees Celsius.
At the same time, turn your oven on at a low temp, 100 degrees Celsius should be enough. Since you are working in batches so you don't overcrowd the frying oil, you will put your ready wings in the oven to keep warm. Real easy.
Now, take the first batch, for my frying pot I've found that between 8-10 wings is the optimum. Put the wings in the bags and shake it baby, you are looking to lightly coat the exterior of your wings with a thin layer of flour.
Its time to throw them into the oil, remember to shake off the excess flour before so you don't end up with a lot of burnt flour in the bottom of the pot. Fry for around 8 minutes, carefully moving halfway through to ensure they didn't stick to each other. If you like your wing a bit browner and crispier leave them for a bit more.
Take them off the oil with a slotted spoon, and put them in a baking sheet in the warm oven to keep warm.
Repeat until you are done with all your wings.
While the last 2 batches are frying it is time to prepare the sauces. I will let you know a little secret about wing sauces… The thing that makes the sauce perfectly stick to the wing and give that rich and awesome flavor is… surprise surprise, butter! So, in a simplistic way you could take any sauce you can imagine and mix it up with melted butter to reach a perfect wing sauce. Prepare your sauce ingredients as shown in the photos below.
In this case we will make 2 sauces, so 2 pans at the same time, melt half a stick of butter in each pan at a medium low heat.
First one is real simple, take the grated garlic cloves and let them sauté in the melted butter for a while. Add the lemon zest, lemon juice, salt and pepper. When it starts bubbling you can turn it off and leave on the stove to keep warm.
The second one is even simpler, dissolve a generous amount of Thai sweet chili sauce, in my case I also added a good spoonful of home made hotsauce, just for extra heat. The drill is the same, when it start bubbling up, turn it off and keep it there.
Once you are done frying your wings, its time to separate them in two bowls (or as many different sauces you have made), and pretty much pour your sauces in. Shake and stir to assure that all your wings have been maximally covered in the deliciousness of the sauce.
For the garlic and lemon sauce, you just need to take a big ass portion of grated parmesan cheese and mix it with the already delicious wings to achieve perfection.
You can serve everything with a nice coleslaw, some salad, onion rings, Greek yoghurt and blue cheese sauce or whatever you please.
That's it, serve, enjoy and thank me later.