Chicken Wings Made Two Ways

The sixth food we have for our Super Bowl Healthy Eats Series is chicken wings.  Chicken wings?  Yes, chicken wings, after all you cannot have Super Bowl food without the token chicken wing dish.  Healthy?  Yes, we hardly used any extra oil in our recipes, just good seasonings and cage free chickens.

There are a few tips for preparing your wings.  The first is, wash your wings and pat dry, very dry or your marinade will not stick.  I thought about removing the pointed tip of the chicken wing but then we would have drumettes, so I tucked the wing tip behind the fatty part of the wing.   As well it is kind of fun gnawing on the crispy chicken skin;  so much flavor gets tucked in there!  Both of these recipes are too easy.  Feel free to marinate them for as long as you like, but at least 30 minutes.  The healthy feature, they are baked, not fried in “fat”.  You could grill them as well, if you don’t mind getting the grill going.

Our first set of chicken wings have an Asian flair.  We marinated the chicken wings in a soy, aged black garlic, cilantro and miran mixture.  Our second set was inspired by this ketchup sauce my grandmother use to make to put over a meatloaf.  Instead of ketchup I used tomato sauce and seasoned it with brown sugar, shallots and garlic.  I wanted to spice up the sauce a bit, so I added that special Basque touch with by adding some piment d’Espelette .  As well I wanted a little Portuguese touch so I added some piri piri.  Both dishes were baked until crispy.  We did not want to drown out the flavorful seasonings by adding the big bowl of blue cheese or ranch dressing so we served them ….. simply by themselves.

You may not know it but there is an art to eating chicken wings.  Our friend, Chef John, from Foodwishes made this great video (yes, we have permissions to share it with this post) on how to properly eat chicken wings – this is good to know if you don’t like getting your fingers dirty – Lenny loves this method!

Recipes:  Asian Inspired Wings

1 cup soy sauce

4 cloved aged black garlic, minced

2 tablespoons sugar

6 tablespoons mirin

4 tablespoons cliantro

4 tablespoons sesame seeds

12 chicken wings

Combine everything in a big bowl, whisk.  Add the chicken wings, stir.  Let marinade at least 30 minutes.  Heat oven to 425.  Lay wings out on a cookie sheet that has been covered with foil.  Bake for 15 minutes.  Flip over the wings.  Bake for another 15 minutes.  Remove from oven and let set for 5 minutes.  Put on a serving platter.  Serve.  Eat.

Recipe:  Spicy Tomato Sauce Chicken Wings

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/4 cup shallots, minced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 tablespoon piment d’espelette

1 tablespoon piri piri or harissa

1 1/2 cups tomato sauce

Heat the olive oil in a small saucepan.  Add the onion and garlic, stir and cook for about 3 minutes.  Add the brown sugar, piment d’espelette, piri piri and tomato sauce.  Stir.  Cook for about 5 minutes.  Remove from heat and let cool. Put the chicken wings in a big bowl and pour over the sauce, stir.  Let marinade for at least 30 minutes.  Heat oven to 425.  Lay wings out on a cookie sheet that has been covered with foil.  Bake for 15 minutes.  Flip over the wings.  Bake for another 15 minutes.  Remove from oven and let set for 5 minutes.  Put on to a serving platter.  Serve.  Eat.