Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Chicken Wings (the next best thing to Wild Boar)

Man, I been sitting on these wings since July, but don't worry! They're still good! Spoiled meat is no treat, not even as a Halloween trick. Actually, I once heard Inga Muscio tell a roomful of aspiring activists how a carefully placed piece of raw chicken can wreak time released havoc in an objectionable corporate chain store, but do you really want to fight your way through those crowds on Halloween? Go tomorrow when the candy's all half-off...



Obelix, here, has asked me to tell you that he does not consider chicken wings food. Wild boar is food. Whatever you say, boy. Why don't you go take your plastic pumpkin and see if you can hunt one down on Atlantic Avenue...-
Now then.

Chicken Wings

Way ahead of time, like the day before or, if you think a pan of these with all the homemade blue cheese dressing you can drink will be just the ticket after escorting a passel of jacked-up, candy-crazed kids around the neighborhood, right now, boil up your marinade:

1 & 1/4 cup of soy sauce
1 cup of water
12 scallions, brutally clubbed for maximum flavor and pre-holiday stress release
10 cloves of garlic, ditto (get those homemade costume-related aggressions out while the kids are in school!)
10 slices of ginger, ibid (Watch your fingers. You'll need them to fasten those emergency safety pins)
and 1 & 1/4 cup of sake (or white wine. Maybe even cooking sherry. Honey, how are you going to have time to run to the liquor store when you haven't finished hot gluing the feather to Paula Revere's hat? (photos to follow) Use what you got.

Simmer this for ten minutes.

Meanwhile, rinse, drain, and separate 4 pounds of chicken wings. Good lord, that's a lot of flying power. If you've never separated a chicken wing into the miniature drumstick / V-shaped combo, perhaps you would like some advice from an erstwhile massage therapist. Use a big heavy knife, the kind young Michael Myers used to whack his parents in Halloween, and crunch down right at the joint where the drumstick joins the V-shape.For some reason, it's easier if the bulge-y side is facing up. You'll get a feel for it after one or two, after which it's just another gross-out serial procedure.




Arrange your wings in a shallow vessel, pour the slightly cooled marinade over them, cover with cling-wrap, and place in the fridge for poor, freaked-out Jamie Lee Curtis to find. She's probably used to it by now. Who would've thought she'd turn into such a good role model? Unlike the majority of her Botoxed-out-the-bahooty celebrity peers, I can totally see her shambling along behind her kids, carrying cast-off Obelix wigs, and then collapsing on the couch with a bucket of blue cheese dressing and a six pack of Magic Hat. Uh...she's not in recovery or anything is she?

When you can wait no longer, preheat your oven to 500☠ (sorry, it's been so long since my last post, I forget where the degrees symbol is).

Line a cookie sheet with foil, and arrange the marinated wings in a single layer.



Roast em for 40 minutes, turning halfway through. You can even baste them with the marinade, unless you think that's unsanitary, exposing them to something their raw bodies have been soaking in, when they're well on their way to being cooked. It doesn't bother me, but then I'm the type who bastes with whatever paintbrush the kids used the last time they were assaulting our dining table with their ill-conceived crafts. (Also, where is all this red synthetic hair coming from?)

You can eat them right out of the oven as is,but I'm a traditional sort, and I flew without wings for a long time, so now that I'm back to crunching the (humanely farmed) bones, I want my wings served proper, i.e. with cut-up celery stalks and blue cheese dressing. You can whip this up in five minutes, and now that you know what's in it, you'll probably never order blue cheese dressing again. Might as well eat a can of Crisco:

1 cup of mayonnaise
1 cup of sour cream
6 ounces of blue cheese
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
and a 1/ 2 teaspoon of fresh ground pepper

Whisk it all together, but be prepared to have your whisk all gobbed up. Have a poking implement on hand. Speaking of hands, I can't think of anything more finger licking good than big old bowl of blue cheese dressing! Come on, you're too big to be scared of a little stink.







Oh by the way, for those who were following along on my Diet-to-Go, I got a nice letter from one of their employees asking me to "play nice". Don't worry, not in the legal sense. I reckon I got my point across though, so rather than continue beat a flat, indifferently assembled sandwich and wormy, air-freighted apple to expense-justifying death, I'm going to take it out with a few photos. If they'd valued me any more, they probably would have slipped a razor blade in there...