SCENE 1
|
Since there is such a high demand for breast meat in this country, wings are still relatively cheap. Now since I would never consider cooking wings without cooking a mess of wings—say, well, a lot—I usually purchase the Pre-Wrapped Party Pack. |
Whole Chicken |
AB: One Pre-Wrapped Party Wing pack, please.
BUTCHER: Okay.
Now sure, you could just cut the wings off of every chicken you cook for the next year and freeze them until you have your own Pre-Wrapped Party Pack, but that’s a little bit extreme even for me.
[displays an X-ray of a chicken wing over his oven door] As the good doctor has already pointed out, a long history of laziness has devolved the chicken wing into a relatively simple structure characterized by three segments and two hinges. Here is where the wing was cut away from the shoulder at the plant. That’s the scapula bone up there. This first section is called the drumette because of its resemblance to the drumstick. It houses the humerus bone. Ha-ha-ha! The hu ... The second section, or “wing flat”, contains the ulna and the radius. And then the wing tip or nubbin is, well, pretty much a culinary wasteland. |
Chicken Wing 2 |
[at the cutting board] And now we cut.
AB: Lights! [a magnifying light flies into view over the cutting board]
Ha ha ha. Perfect. Now let’s talk
about knives. For this kind of job, I like to use a stiff-bladed boning knife
such as this. If you don’t have one, you can use either a short chef’s knife or
even a paring knife. But I like this curve right here. Now let’s take a look at
our target, zee wing. There we go. Now, the joint between the flat and the
little nibblet here is just cartilage, so we can cut through that right down on
the board. If you want to save that for your stock pot, you can. If not,
discard.
Now the joint here between the drumette and the flat, now that’s a
stout customer. A lot of connective tissue and a good bit of bone. [lifts the
wing, so that the joint is the only part of the wing in contact with the board]
Cutting through this way is actually pretty treacherous, and you could make a
big mess. What I like to do is just turn it over and squeeze. That’ll kind of
reveal and open up that joint right there. Then we can make a small cut till it
pops open. Lay it down on the board and then cut the rest of the way through.
That’s all there is to it, kids. And to think, you were going to pay a butcher
to do that. Shame!
The Anchor Bar serves more than 70,000 pounds of chicken every month.
GUEST: Refrigerator Gnome
Doctor
[at the refrigerator] Now, if we are going to produce a nice, crisp skin on
these jewels, they have got to be dry when they meet the heat. And I don’t mean
just, you know, pat-down-on-paper-towel dry. I mean the kind of dry that only a
couple of hours in the old chill chest will create. That means you’re going to
have to stash these in here, uncovered.
REFRIGERATOR GNOME: [kicks AB’s leg]
AB: [grunts] Hey! It’s you!
RG: Yes, here to stop you from harming yourself or others.
AB: What are you talking about, you annoying ornamental imp?
RG: I’m talking about you with all that contaminated poultry all soaked with
Salmonella.
AB: I need to dry it and chill it. Covering it will ruin everything.
RG: Well, then you’re going to have to follow some strict rules, my dirty
friend.
AB: Hey, I’m not dirty.
RG: Put that poultry down here on the bottom shelf in a large container.
AB: What, you mean like this?
RG: Yes, quite. And make sure you consult your refrigerator thermometer to
ensure avoidance of the danger zone.
AB: You mean like this? [shows RG his refrigerator thermometer]
RG: Oh! You’ve gone and touched it with your chickeny hand. You moron. I’m out
of here. Ta-ta.
The little booger’s right, of course. Cross-contamination is an issue. The best
way to insure against it is to contain and isolate. Placing the wings on the
bottom shelf in a high-sided container will keep them away from any cooked food
that might be exposed up here. Ooo, you’ll also notice that I’ve spread these
out on a little steamer basket inside this bowl to help with the air
circulation. And actually, the lower you can go, the better. There. Perfect.
Now, let us consider cooking. Now being bar food, most Buffalo-style wings are
deep-fat fried because deep-fat frying is fast, tasty and most bars that serve
food have commercial fryers like this. Let’s give it a try. [turns on one of the
Fry-O-Laytors and half the lights go out] Oh, that’s okay. We’ve got two
circuits. [turns on another Fry-O-Laytor and the other half of the lights go
out] Oh, bother.
Well, as I was about to say, deep-fat frying is not the best way to cook Buffalo
chicken wings because, well, they already contain enough fat to essentially fry
themselves as long as we can apply the correct dosage of heat. I, I think the breaker box is in the basement. Excuse me.
Wings are covered with skin, and that skin will stick to a hot piece of metal
like a tongue to a winter flagpole. So, you can use racks, which will
help, and you’ll lube them up liberally before you lay on the poultry. Now if
you want crispy skin, and of course we do, we’ll need to pour on the heat. 425
degrees should do the trick. Of course, since they contain a little bit of fat,
odds are there will be a bit of smoke, but it’ll be okay.
[later with a LOT of smoking in the oven, AB is coughing] Obviously, if
we roast the wings at 425, we’ll get fabulous skin, but too much smoke from all
that fat rendering out and pyrolyzing. If we go with a lower temperature, say, 350, for a longer time,
we’ll stay beneath the smoke point of the fat and we might get the crisp skin,
but we’ll also dry out the meat. No, we need another method.
So I’m thinking that the answer to our dilemma is to cook the wings twice,
starting with a wet method. Okay, steam will provide the necessary heat to
squeeze the excess fat out of those wings without overcooking or drying the
meat or the skin. Now the wing pieces will need some space. Now I don’t really
want to pile them onto a single st ...
[realizes that he has many vegetable steamers at his disposal] Excuse me.
[constructs a device consisting of three vegetable steamers stacked
vertically, see the show info for notes on this]
There. Twenty-four pieces of chicken, each one with plenty of room for steam to get in and around. Now speaking of steam, we will bring to a boil in your largest pot, about an inch and a half of water. And we will bring that down to just a simmer, and then lower in our luscious payload. Cover, and I figure that ten minutes should do the job. Just long enough for me to put away all these fans [which have been clearing away the smoke from the previous attempt]. |
12 Whole Chicken Wings, Tips Removed & Cut in Half |
[kitchen timer sounds] Time to evacuate. There’s going to be a good bit of
steam, so don protection and open the lid away. Ah, very good. Now I’ll set
those aside. Now you can see by looking down in the water, see all that
schmaltz in there? That means that we’ve rendered out a considerable amount of
fat.
Now I want to cool these guys down, and I think that’s a little tall for the
refrigerator. So I’ll move them to a half-sheet pan and cooling rack, lined with
a little bit of paper towel, because those are going to keep dripping.
Cool and dry in the refrigerator for at least one
hour before roasting in the
oven.
Now that they have chilled, slide your wings into a 425 degree oven for 20 minutes. Oh, and you’re going to want to trade out that paper towel for some parchment paper. Paper towels don’t like high temperatures. There we go. Now let’s talk sauce. |
425 Degrees |
[at the refrigerator] If our intel concerning that fateful night in 1964 is correct, then the original Buffalo chicken wing sauce was nothing more than a mixture of bottled hot sauce and margarine, which of course is a butter substitute consisting of a blend of hydrogenated vegetable oils, emulsifiers, coloring agents, vitamins and in many versions, a big whopping dollop of trans fats, which some doctors say ...
DOCTOR: ... are actually worse for you than the saturated fats in the butter that
the margarine was invented to replace.
AB: Hmm.
D: Not that you couldn’t stand to cut back on both.
AB: Thank you.
Margarine is named for margaric acid, a saturated fat discovered
in 1813 which
doesn’t occur in nature.
I feel certain, had Mrs. Bellissimo understood the perils of trans fats, she would have simply reached for butter. Which, despite its saturated fat, is at least real food, ha ha, and darn tasty.
So we need three ounces of melted butter. That’s six tablespoons, or 3/4 of a stick. Now the microwave is the right tool for this mission. But you want to avoid high power which can cause geyser-like explosions as the water inside the butter begins to boil. Cutting into pieces helps with this as well. While you’re at it, you might as well go ahead and toss in a clove’s worth of minced garlic. Warming that with the butter will help to open up the flavors. Now while this melts down, we will contemplate the cult of capsaicin. |
3 Ounces Unsalted Butter, Melted 1 Clove Garlic, Minced
Microwave times my vary. |
GUESTS: Young Man and Young Woman
Ten years ago, if you went to your local megamart for hot sauce, there were, like, three choices. There would be some stuff from Texas, some stuff from Louisiana, and some stuff with, you know, chilies kind of floating around inside of it. But today, there are dozens of different sauces readily available from all over the planet. How did this happen? Well, some say it’s just a result of the influx of various ethnic cuisines into the mainstream. But there’s another theory gaining momentum. This theory suggests that it’s the baby boomers. That’s right. You see, those of us born during the great postwar spawn between 1946 and 1964 are getting older. And as we move beyond 40, we lose taste buds at an accelerated rate. It may be that this influx of heat is nothing more than a market reaction to the fact that we require increased stimulation and we’re willing to pay for it. Some anthropologists, of course, believe that the consumption of hot foods is closely tied to mating rituals. Let’s find out.
[AB is a table in the store, the sign says, "Try AB's Rocket Hot Sauce", the young couple walks by]
AB: Hi, would you like to try my new hot
sauce?
YOUNG MAN: Uh, no thanks.
AB: Well, I don’t blame you.
YM: What’s that supposed to mean?
AB: Oh, nothing. It’s just really hot.
YM: Whatever. [they leave, then return] You know, I do want to try it.
AB: No, you don’t.
YM: Why? You don’t think I could handle it?
AB: Oh, come on, Sir. A man of your stature can handle ... No.
YOUNG WOMAN: Come on, pumpkin, let’s go. You know what spicy food does to you.
YM: You too, huh, honey? Well you just take this [hands her the hand-held
shopping basket] and you see what your man’s made of.
AB: [homaging Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka] Don’t. Stop. Don’t do it.
YM: [downing several shots of the hot sauce] Whoo!
YW: Do you think this is going to impress me?
AB: Actually, if recent sociological studies are correct, yes.
YW: Because it’s not. It’s just dumb.
YM: I’m fine. See, no, no ...
YW: You don’t look fine.
AB: Well, that’s because the capsaicin is just starting to really bind onto his
tongue and sending mixed messages to his brain which are interpreted as, uh,
pain.
YM: [is starting to feel the effects]
AB: Pain. Lots of pain. Have some
toast there, that’ll help
YM: [stuffs a bunch of toast into his mouth]
AB: Still
burning? Still burning?
YM: [nods frantically]
AB: Sour cream, aisle four.
YM: [runs
off]
AB: Yeah, that’ll set you up. [to the woman] You know, the consumption of overly hot foods may be an
expression of ancient mating behavior where the male seeks to impress a
prospective mate with feats of physical endurance.
YW: You, you mean he really loves me?
AB: Well, I don’t know if I’d call it ... [gives in] Yeah, he loves you.
YW: Wait, pumpkin! Honey bunny is gonna make it all better!
Ah, 20 minutes is up, time to flip for evenness. And notice, no smoke. There, another 20 minutes and we’ll be in Chicken Wing Nirvana.
Although the ratio of hot sauce to butter is completely up to you, I find that a quarter of a cup, or two ounces of the hot stuff to three ounces of butter hits the best balance. The heat will be there, but so will the flavor. You won’t just blow your head off. [mixes hot sauce and butter] Now make sure you mix this along with one-half teaspoon of kosher salt in a big old bowl, big enough to accommodate the tossing of the wings. And of course, if you want to up the garlic, you could throw in another one, maybe two minced cloves at this time. There. Now whisk to combine. |
¼ Cup Hot Sauce ½ tsp. Kosher Salt |
[at the oven] Ah, perfect. Now I know, 40 minutes at 425 seems extreme for items this small. But keep in mind there was still a fair amount of fat left inside those little
jewels, and some tough connective tissue that needed to soften. As for the skin,
it is very crisp, which is perhaps the most important characteristic. And again,
no smoke. None. Not a bit. Ha-ha.
In order for the sauce to properly marry with the skin, it is imperative that
this step [tossing the wings in the sauce] be done while the wings are still hot. The nice thing about this
particular method is that even once saturated with sauce, the skins will remain
crispy [removes one, and takes a bite].
The tabasco pepper is a small red chile that originated in Tabasco, Mexico.
There you go. I know. You’re wondering where the celery and blue cheese dressing
are. Well they’re in the refrigerator. I know. There are those who would argue
that the celery and dressing were put with the wings because Mrs. Bellisimo knew
that the heat of the wings would need some cooling balance. Well, I don’t think
it diminishes her genius one bit to suggest that, being a good hostess, she just
grabbed what she had. I think it was probably a happy accident and it’s not one
that I’m inclined to perpetuate. When I want to get my wing on, I don’t want to
stop for a salad. That’s a different show.
Now I realize that the hot sauce and butter approach may not be for everyone. But that’s no reason to veer off your wings.
The technique of coating a food in a sugar-based glaze has been practiced in
China since, I don’t know, since Confucius was a kid. The secret to success is
to strike a balance of sweet and sour, salt and spice. It’s a yin-yang kind of
thing.
Here’s how I see it. The salty, we will get from one tablespoon of soy sauce, the spice from half a teaspoon of red pepper flake, the sweet from two teaspoons of honey and a six-ounce can of frozen orange juice concentrate. The sour will be one teaspoon of vinegar, rice wine vinegar, and we’ll also use three tablespoons of hoisin sauce. Okay, now hoisin usually contains fermented soybean paste, like miso, vinegar, garlic, various chilies and other flavorings, and sometimes sesame oil. In other words, it contains components of all the teams put together, and then some. |
1 Tbs. Soy Sauce ½ tsp. Red Pepper Flake 2 tsp. Honey 6 Ounces Frozen Orange Juice Concentrate 1 tsp. Rice Wine Vinegar |
Combine the aforementioned ingredients in a small saucepan, and bring to a
simmer over medium-high heat. The goal is to slowly drive away the water
content and therefore increase the sugar content, creating about half a cup or
so of a finished glaze. Now remember, as the sugar content increases, so will
the possibility of burning, which is why we’re doing this over, well, not full
flame. When you see the bubbles start to kind of stack up on each other, you
know that you’re getting very, very close, so manage your flame accordingly.
There, our glaze is done. But it is not yet ready to meet our wings. Go ahead
and transfer to your great big tossing bowl and then let this cool down for five
minutes. That will thicken the glaze. And because the water content will be a
little less mobile, it will be a lot less likely to soften the crust on our
wings.
[at the oven, looking over another pan of wings] You did steam, cool and
perfectly roast a pan of wing pieces, right? Good. [tosses new batch of wings
with the sweet-sour sauce]
There you go. And thus, the humble, almost completely useless chicken wing shows
that it still does have a reason to exist.
My hope is that one day, chicken breeders will embrace this magnificent
appendage and breed us a bird with wings like ... [camera pans over to the
papier-mâché chicken outfitted with huge wings, we hear an eagle shrieking]
If that day ever comes, I’ll be waiting hot sauce in hand.
See you next time on “Good Eats.”
†This is not entirely correct and is a common misconception in explaining airplane flight. For a better explanation, I direct you to the article How Airplanes Work at howstuffworks.com.
Transcribed by Michael Roberts
Proofread by Michael Menninger
Last Edited on 08/27/2010