Super Bowl, Smuper Bowl...I Love Me Some Wings.

I'm a fan of sports, usually enjoy a good baseball game, and really did enjoy the World Cup while we were in Paris two years ago.

What I realize I love the the most about sporting events (and everything else) are the snacks and foods that go along with these events. My very favorite sports snack is the almighty chicken wing.

I embarked on my research about a week ago. In the past, I had thought you either fried the wings or boiled and then baked the wings. Many recipes online required flouring the wings, which I wasn't going to do due to the gluten-freeness of my diet. I decided to do what cooks used to do in the olden-times: I asked the butcher his advice.

There happens to be a very nice butcher shop in my neighborhood. I saw the wings in the butcher case but they didn't look like the kind I've gotten in restaurants.

So I asked the butcher two things:

  1. Are the wings/drumsticks usually split in two before cooking?
  2. Don't I need to boil the wings before I bake them?

And the butcher responded:

  1. Yes, he said, and I can cut them into two for you.
  2. No, don't even think of that! Just bake them in a hot oven and then roll them in the sauce.

After a bit more instruction from my butcher-best-friend, I was ready to tackle the sauce.

I wanted to make something the kids could eat, too, but after some consideration, decided that just this once I'd go for it and make a sauce the adults could love, and the kids could eat theirs plain. I remembered Gran-Fran making some awesome BBQ sauce back in the day, and based on this recollection, I knew I needed ketchup as my base. And something spicy, then something sweet. I added butter, too, which I can't recall if Gran-Fran would be thrilled by this or mortified that I used butter in something involving meat. (I'm sure we'll be getting a comment sometime soon from her weighing in on the matter.)

Then, I started thinking about a recipe I had seen on the craftzine website that served chicken wings on top of cupcakes. At first I thought it sounded not so good. But then, it got in my head, and I figured that maybe if I were to make a savory cornbread to put under the wings, it would offset the spicy sauce nicely. I used a gluten-free mix, with almond milk and added some chipotle powder, too.

And so, here it is, plain and simple, my first try at at making my very own chicken wings. They are really, really good, and worth the effort.

Chicken Wings with Hot Sauce

Ingredients

For the Chicken Wings

  • 2 lbs Chicken Wings, cut into wings and drumsticks
  • Olive Oil for roasting

For the Sauce:

  • 1/2 cup Hot sauce of your choice
  • 1 cup of Ketchup
  • 1/2 of a Lemon, jucied
  • 3 Tbsps Butter, softened
  • 4 cloves Garlic, chopped coarsely
  • 1/2 Tsp Sesame Oil
  • 1 Tbsp Honey
  • Salt and Pepper to Taste

For the Cornbread:

  • 1 box Gluten Free Pantry Yankee Cornbread mix (or any kind of cornbread mix you prefer)
  • 1/4 cup Sugar
  • 1-1/3 cups Almond Milk
  • 1 Egg lightly beaten
  • 6 Tbsps melted butter

And: 2 stalks of Green Onion, sliced thinly

Roast The Chicken

  • Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
  • Place the chicken in a roasting pan in one layer.
  • Sprinkle with salt and a olive oil.
  • Roast for 40 minutes or until the skin is browned.

Make The Sauce

  • While the chicken is roasting, put all of the sauce ingredients in a pan and heat over low on the stove.
  • You'll know when it's done when it sticks to the back of a wooden spoon and it has thickened.
  • Remove the chicken from the oven and take it out of the pan.

Make The Cornbread

  • Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl.
  • Add in the eggs, almond milk and butter.
  • Mix until all the dry ingredients are fully incorporated.
  • Spread the mixture evenly in a baking pan.
  • Bake for 20 minutes. (It cooks in a 425 degree oven, just like the chicken.)
  • Remove, cool and cut up into serving sized pieces each large enough to hold a wing.

Time To Serve It Up

  • Working in small batches, put a wing or two in the sauce, rolling them around to coat them thoroughly.
  • Place a wing on top of a piece of the cornbread.
  • Spoon a bit of sauce over the top of each wing and add some green onions.

Enjoy!

Popcorn, Popcorn Get Your.....I Mean, Bring Your Own Popcorn

The weather here in SF has been nothing if not confusing these past few weeks. Not only have we had rain, including thunder and lightning (which rarely, if ever, occurs here), but in a span of 3 days, we have gone from 95° to 55°, with no knowledge of which way the wind will blow next (literally, folks, I mean it). With the hope that Fall is really coming to us, and all of those great new releases, I've been thinking a lot about popcorn. Not the microwave kind, nor the Jiffy-Pop stovetop popper kind, and most certainly not the air popper kind. No. The Joe kind. My Dad makes the best oil-popped popcorn around. And I should know, since popcorn was a bring your own affair to movie theaters and baseball games alike.

This was as much out of necessity (imagine buying popcorn for five kids and two adults...it could cost as much as a downpayment on a small house), as it was out of personal taste. It is yet another example of Gran Fran and Joe's unerring level of taste, which extended even to snack foods.

Getting everyone out the door for the movies, not only involved a final trip to the bathroom for all (which always led Gran Fran to yell out "Gotta go to the bathroom Anthony?", apparently this was something she often overheard as a child in her Brooklyn neighborhood, being yelled from a window to kids on the street), but also to the preparation and packaging of everyone's popcorn.

There were two packaging methods, plastic quart bag with a twist tie, or a brown paper lunch sack. I am unclear to this day as to whether or not these co-existed, or if we transitioned from one type of bag to the other over time. Regardless, the popcorn went with us in a lare purse, and somehow we always made it into the theater with our secret stash intact until the lights went down.

To this day, even though I have been known to consume huge quantities of movie theater popcorn, it never quite lives up to Joe's. The secret, I believe, is his use of olive oil as teh cooking medium. It leaves the popcorn just moist enough to not burn, but no too soggy. And, there is no butter served or offered. Instead, salt, cayenne pepper or just black pepper are accompaniments for Joe's popcorn. I don't think I even realied that butter was an option until I was grown and buying popcorn at the movies myself. I do sometimes add butter at home, but usually, just sprinkle some more olive oil over the top when cooking is complete.

I can no longer keep popcorn kernals in my house. Many a night has passed without dinner while I watch movies at my house. Instead, I can be found on the couch with a mixing bowl large enough to hold a small baby in it, filled with popcorn, covered in olive oil, salt and cayenne, alongside a big glass of water. Needless to say, my belly isn't well for hours afterward, but it is sually worth the slight stomach upset in return for the goodness of JoeCorn (I just made that name up, but I think it might stick).

JoeCorn (or Popcorn: The Joe Way)
from Joe: 
I pretty much follow the instructions on jar, except that I don't put the corn in until the pot is hot. So, do the following once you have determined how much corn you shall pop:
Three generous tablespoons of oil and four or five kernels into the pot. High heat until one of the kernels pops. Then add the rest of the corn and lower the heat to medium-high.
Jostle the pot every 20 seconds or so, even after the popping begins. When the popping slows, turn the heat off and leave the pot on the burner until the popping stops.
If you want to surprise your guests, offer cayenne along with the salt, both to be administered in bowls filled from the serving bowl.