I’ve lived in the Buffalo, NY area all of my life, so I know my wings. Wings are a staple of parties and nights you don’t feel like cooking in this neck of the woods (which may explain the average waistband around here too). We have a yearly festival and locals hotly contend who makes the best wings. A lot of us also make our wings. In this post, I shared a recipe I like to use for baked wings. Nothing compares to hot and fresh wings right out of the fryer at the Anchor Bar or Duff’s (where President Obama made a stop here when he was in town last year. We locals analyzed his order for weeks and weeks) though.

Last week, Martha did a show about meatballs. Oh, how my family loves meatballs. I make Asian meatballs, Greek meatballs, and I almost always have a bag of my turkey meatballs in the freezer. Meatballs sub are a favorite for leftover meatballs here. So the idea of a meatball show had me quite excited. I was even more excited to see Martha and guests make Buffalo Chicken Wing Meatballs.  I HAD to give this one a try. I followed the recipe, however instead of using 3/4 cup of hot sauce, I reduced it to 1/4 cup – and this was still almost too hot for me (I am very sensitive to spicy foods – but the rest of the family did not think it was too spicy at all). This was very easy to make and they turned out perfectly. I did not make the bleu cheese dip recipe and instead used Marie’s light bleu cheese dressing, which is always in our fridge. This was a total home run. They tasted exactly like wings, but without the mess, high fat, or bones. This is absolutely a MUST make for Superbowl Sunday. We had this for dinner, but it’s really supposed to be a party food and it would work perfectly as that. This recipe is getting the highest rating from these chicken wing lovers!

I’ve lived in the Buffalo, NY area all of my life, so I know my wings. Wings are a staple of parties and nights you don’t feel like cooking in this neck of the woods (which may explain the average waistband around here too). We have a yearly festival and locals hotly contend who makes … Read more →

In the March issue of Everyday Food, Martha has a recipe for sticky chicken wings. As you may or may not know, we live in Buffalo. So we know a thing or two about wings. I was interested to try Martha’s take on it, which is actually pretty similar to a recipe I use. I’ll share both here with you.

First up – Martha. I used chicken legs to make this recipe because I can find organic chicken legs but I can’t find organic chicken wings in our stores at this point. I actually think chicken legs are a nice alternative – they are less fatty and more meaty and you can still get that nice crunchy skin on the outside of it.

Martha’s recipe includes these ingredients:

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup fish sauce

1/4 cup lemon juice

2 tbsp soy sauce

a 1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and smashed

1 serrano chile

2 lbs chicken wings

Martha says to mix everything but the wings in a baking dish, add the wings, toss to coat, and bake at 300 for an hour, then increase the temp to 450 for 30 minutes. Martha says to serve with the sliced chile. I skipped that part.

This recipe was pretty good. The legs came out nice and brown and the sauce had a good flavor. It made one hell of a mess in the baking dish though- all the additional sauce burned. I’m actually still scrubbing and soaking it. I’m not wild about fish sauce in general, but it did add a nice note to this sauce.

Now onto to my recipe. This is an adaptation of a recipe in Buffalo Spree magazine.

5 lbs wings, tips discarded, cut into two sections

2 cups honey

1 cup tamari (gluten free)

2 tbsp ketchup

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp garlic salt

Spray a roasting pan with cooking spray and preheat oven to 375. Arrange the wings and pour the sauce over them, turning to coat completely. Bake for one hour.  Turn the wings and continue to bake for 10 to 30 minutes. The time differential depends on how you like your wings. I like mine very dark, but not burned.  I also find that it will depend on your oven and how well you turn your roasting pan to take advantage of the hot spots in your oven.  If you like your wings spicy, add some hot sauce to the mixture. If you’re interested, traditional Buffalo wings are covered in nothing more than butter and hot sauce and taste best deep fried, but you can replicate it by roasting the wings completely plain and then tossing in the butter and hot sauce mix at the very end. I find that for baking wings you have more success with a sauce like my recipe. You can make my recipe with chicken legs if you prefer.

In the March issue of Everyday Food, Martha has a recipe for sticky chicken wings. As you may or may not know, we live in Buffalo. So we know a thing or two about wings. I was interested to try Martha’s take on it, which is actually pretty similar to a recipe I use. I’ll … Read more →

I’ve tackled another one of Martha’s Superbowl party foods, Spicy-Sweet Chicken Wings (page 38 of January Martha Stewart Living). First let me say this. I’m from Buffalo. Home of the chicken wing. When we order wings here we get them from some of the very best places in the entire world. Tough to beat.

I do occasionally make my own wings. So I was eager to give Martha’s version a try.

First you make the sauce – a mix of hoisin, orange zest, hot sauce, honey and sesame oil. I felt right away it could not possibly be enough. You marinate the wings in part of it, then bake them. Halfway through you put the rest of the sauce on them. The wings did not get as crispy as I like them and they were on the edge of burning. They had a slightly mushy texture. I like them crunchy.

The sauce had a nice taste, but there just was not enough of it. Having the dipping sauce definitely helped, but usually a dip has a different flavor, not a repeat of the same tastes.

Everyone agreed these wings were ok, but not terrific. I would recommend cooking them longer at a lower temp so that the sugars in the sauce do not burn, yet the wings have time to crisp.

I’ve tackled another one of Martha’s Superbowl party foods, Spicy-Sweet Chicken Wings (page 38 of January Martha Stewart Living). First let me say this. I’m from Buffalo. Home of the chicken wing. When we order wings here we get them from some of the very best places in the entire world. Tough to beat. I … Read more →