Buffalo Wings

From: stevew@rb-csd.sandiegoca.ncr.com

Date: Sat, 7 Aug 93 17:27:55 PDT

        
This is a wing recipe from a guy who used to cook wings for a living in 
Buffalo.  
        
Get some Durkee's Frank's Original Red Hot Cayenne Pepper Sauce, there 
is "no" adequate substitute, you may have to ask your grocer to order it, 
or call Durkee/French's at 714-526-3363.  If it's the little bottles, get 
two or three of them, I get the gallon jug from a restaurant supply place, 
cheap!   It used to be called Frank's Red Hot Pepper Sauce, then it was 
Durkee's Louisiana Hot Sauce, but there already was a brand name Louisiana 
Hot Sauce.  Still tastes the same!

Acquire some margarine.  Only margarine works right (correct taste and 
resistance to burning).  Neither oil nor butter will substitute.  

Get the wings cut up, and start heating up the frying grease.  Some 
revisionist (or health-conscious) types insist on other cooking methods, 
but there is nothing like the real crisp-on-the-outside moist
-and-chewy-on-the-inside texture of fried wings.  

Make up the sauce.  Put the Durkee's and margarine into a skillet or  
saute pan big enough to comfortably hold one fryer-load of wings.  The 
total amount of sauce at once should be about a quarter of an inch in the 
bottom of the pan.  

The proportions are:

Equal parts is the nominal starting point (called "medium" in Buffalo).  
A bit of tingle, but not very spicy.  

Undiluted Durkee's doesn't taste as good, but is pretty hot.  Three to 
one, Durkee's to margarine is about as hot as I like it.  

For the really timid (like kids) just a splash of Durkee's in the margarine 
gives a little flavor but no noticeable hot.  The idea is to cook up the  
Durkee's and margarine to a bit thicker consistency.  It should simmer for 
5 minutes or so, then be kept hot.  

You can make up just one batch of sauce for a bunch of wings.  You can just  
add more ingredients to the pan as you use up the sauce.  When you add more 
ingredients, you can adjust the spiciness.  

I use this to satisfy everybody, I start out with all the margarine I plan 
to use, and put in just a splash of Durkee's.  That makes a few wings for  
the kids.  Then a bunch more Durkee's to make the wings medium.  Still more 
Durkee's to get it the way I like it.  

Fry the wings.  They're cooked when the bubbles slow down significantly.   
This takes seeing it once to know just how much bubbling corresponds to 
"done," but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to get it right.  At home,  
I put the "drumettes" in first, because they take a minute or two longer  
to  cook.  As always with frying, be sure that you don't put in so much 
food that the temperature of the fat drops below 325 or so, and have the 
heat on so it gets back up to 375 ASAP.  

As the wings finish cooking, take them out and drain thoroughly.  I 
generally put them in a strainer held over the fat.  Don't pile them up 
in a bowl, or the fat will cool and congeal before it runs off! 

Once the wings are drained, put them in the sauce and get the wings covered 
with sauce.  The official restaurant way to do this is to toss them in the  
air, but your stove cleaner may not appreciate this.

Use tongs to pick the wings out of the pan and let the sauce drain off.  
Toss the wings on a grill or in a hot oven for a few minutes at this point 
to "bake on" the sauce.  

Serve with celery sticks and blue cheese dressing on the side.  Yes, the 
BCD *is* for the wings!  But make sure it is good BCD, with nice chunks of 
good cheese.  (One of the sadder realizations of my growing up is that there 
are some things you just can't get, restaurants get a special Kraft dressing 
that comes only in five-gallon containers that must be continuously 
refrigerated.  Great stuff, not available to you and me.) 


mara

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