The last few weekends I’ve tried a few methods of making chicken wings. About a month ago, me and Dan went to Wing Dome and feasted. As good as it is, it’s expensive. After tax and tip, it comes out to more than $0.75 per wing. With another two years of access to the commissary, I can still get wings for cheap. It’s less than half the price of wings at Fred Meyer and (I assume) other grocery stores. One package had about 16 full wings. When you separate them you get 32. Sorry for the 2nd grade math lesson. The best part is that you get to keep that end piece on the wing. It crisps up nicely and I miss it when I get wings at restaurants. Anyway, the following weekends I made wings on Saturday or Sunday, and sometimes both days.
Frying
The classic method. Just coat the wings in flour, refrigerate, and drop in some oil. It takes about twelve minutes to fully cook the wings. They come out crispy and the sauce sticks to the wings. The only problems with the method are the usual problems associated with frying. You have to use oil and it’s probably the least healthiest of the options. But hey, it tastes awesome and wings aren’t exactly what you should be eating if you’re concerned about calories.
Baking
Another common method. I just skipped the flour coating when baking. I seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic powder and threw them in the oven. Twenty minutes, flip, then fifteen minutes. From beginning to end, it takes about forty minutes to get to eating. Not exactly quick. But it tastes good and doesn’t require much clean up. Just throw away the foil and don’t worry about having to dispose of oil. Something to note is that this method works well for when you want to marinate your wings rather than sauce them up. I bought a bottle of Veri Veri Teriyaki and dropped some wings in it overnight. Baking them is the best way to enhance that flavor. I really doubt frying would be a good idea. Relative to frying, baking wings seems like a healthier option since you’re not forcing excess oil into the wings.
Grilling
Probably the healthiest method, since all the fat that drains off just goes straight through the grill grates. And onto the charcoal, causing huge flare-ups. That end up burning the wings no matter what. For fifteen minutes I was just flipping over and over and trying to remember what order I was turning everything. It felt like some kind of horrible Wii minigame. The meat tasted good, but the skin tasted like what you scrape off of burnt toast. And the whole idea of wings being good comes from the fact that they have the highest skin-to-meat ratio of all chicken cuts. I guess practice makes perfect, but man I don’t really want to learn how to do this if they taste great frying or baking them.