A few weeks ago Veronica and I visited Eric, who has exposed us to his version of Buffalo wings.  In our eyes, the fact that Eric is actually from Buffalo, gives him some authority on the subject.  So, this post is dedicated to his recipe and our observations of him making it.

There are a few stories of how the Buffalo were invented, but most of them surround the Belissimo family from Buffalo, NY and extreme conditions such as unexpected guests or excessive supply of chicken wings.  Regardless, the wings became a very popular at competitive events, where snacks are appreciated :)

According to Erik (confirmed by Wikipedia), traditional wings are “deep fried and then coated in sauce.”  In our case this was a slightly “healthier” version, as no deep frying took place.  Also, according Wikipedia (confirmed by Erik): “Typically, the wings are deep-fried, drained, placed in a bowl with the sauce, tightly covered, and shaken until the wings are evenly coated.”  In our case, the process was really different, which in my view produced better results than what I have tried a couple of times in restaurants.

So, what is it all about?

Ingredients:

As you will see, the quantities are not precise as are the names of some ingredients.  Hopefully, the pictures will help make things clearer.

• wings – not sure about the quantity, but they should be small wings, not the huge chunks of meat (Erik finds them only in Costco)
• 2 sticks of butter
• 32 oz of hot sauce (based on cayenne pepper)
• 3 tea-spoons of minced garlic
• 3 table spoons of honey
• 2 table spoons of molasses
• 1 tea spoon of onion powder
• add a dash of Thai pepper sauce
• add a little ground cayenne powder
• add a little salt
• add a little lime juice

The process:

Erik started with heating a deep pan with the two sticks of butter.  I think my levels of cholesterol started rising only from looking at those two slowly melting in the pan.

Without waiting for the butter to melt completely, Erik added the rest of the ingredients,  starting (I think) with the hot sauce.  The mixture became very colorful and he let it heat up until it started to simmer.

While everything was simmering, Erik started with oiling a couple of pans and spread the wings.  At that point, the wings were actually frozen.  I don’t think i have ever cooked meat straight off the freezer, but according to Erik, this is part of the process.  In fact, as you will see very soon, freezer has additional functions in this recipe.

Next, with abilities of a real artist, Erik coated every single wing with the sauce, using a BBQ brush.  It takes some time and can be somewhat messy, but it is important to be thorough and make sure there are no blind spots.  As Erik put it: “Love your chicken, so it would love you back” :)

Then the wings went into the oven (preheated at about 400F) for about 20 minutes.  After that, Erik took them out, flipped them, covered them with sauce again (on the other side) and returned them back for another 20 minutes.  So far so good and the smell was great.

Now the really interesting part of the processes began.  Without even letting them cool down properly, Erik put them in Tupperware and returned the baked in sauce wings to the freezer.  According to the chef, this is the true secret of his version of the dish.  The wings sit in the freezer for 24 hours (yes, some planning ahead needed if you think about making those) and whatever happens in the freezer supposedly makes them so soft and juicy, when they are eventually made.

24 hours later, the wings, thrown on a preheated skillet, looked like this:

The last stage was continuing cooking the wings on the skillet until they are brown and warm.

That takes some time, because first of all they had to defrost.  All in all, as you can see, that was a pretty time consuming process., But the result was worth it.  As I’ve written before, these were probably the tastiest wings I have tried so far.  They were especially good when taken together with a blue cheese sauce.

In Russian, when you eat something very good, you say that it is so tasty that you would lick your fingers.  Well, in this case, you literally had to do that!