February 2, 2020
We interrupt the posts on our Arizona trip for this important bulletin.
For more years than I can keep track – going back to at least 2013 (first blog post I can find) – we’ve hosted a Super Bowl party with a small group of close friends. Since our youngest son moved back from Chicago we’ve been doing more family stuff, so we had family over for the game this year instead. It was tough breaking with tradition but great for the family to be together.
Herb normally makes the wings in a crock pot and they are so tasty. I wanted to try something different so I had a competition with myself by grilling wings from 2 different recipes.
I knew the grandkids – ages 5 and 3 – wouldn’t like the spicy wings, so I followed a recipe I found for Grill Master Chicken Wings on Allrecipes.com. It couldn’t be much simpler: marinate wings in a mixture of even parts soy sauce and Italian-style salad dressing.
I prepared the second batch using Meathead’s Crisply Grilled Buffalo Wings recipe on Amazingribs.com. I dry brined the wings with some kosher salt, ground pepper, and baking soda.
While the wings were resting, I whipped up some sauces for the Buffalo wings – again from that AmazingRibs recipe linked above. First was the blue cheese dressing.
Measure, weigh, crumble and whisk.
That was going to be way more dressing than we needed. And much thinner than I expected. I added a bit more cream cheese to help it set. Honestly, next time I’ll probably buy some store bought dressing.
The Buffalo sauce is pretty easy as well, butter, hot sauce, and minced garlic.
Franks RedHot is good stuff, but not real spicy – which is fine with me. I melted the butter in a small pan, sautéd the minced garlic for about 30 seconds then whisked in the hot sauce. The biggest challenge for the sauce is keeping it from separating. If you make this, realize you’ll want to whisk just before coating the ribs after cooking.
I started the grill at 325° set up for two zone grilling. The two sets of wings are ready for the grill.
I started the wings on an upper grate with an aluminum foil shield over the direct flame. It wasn’t hot enough. After 10 minutes I removed the foil shield and bumped the temp to 375°. I know from researching the web that some people cook them at 400° with good results. Once the wings were cooked through I crisped them up on the lower rack over the direct side of the grill. I made about 3 passes flipping the wings to make sure they didn’t burn.
Then they were done. I tossed the dry brined wings in the buffalo sauce and put them on a platter.
I didn’t even time to stage the picture or get the platter to the serving area. We gobbled them all up. The 3 year old passed, but the 5 year old – my Associate Pit Master – gobbled up 4 of the marinated wings. Like I said, the Buffalo sauce wasn’t too hot at all but the 5 year old didn’t want to risk it.
They were both very good with the Buffalo wings winning out with one more star: 4 stars to 3. I’ll definitely make these again.
If you read my blog with any regularity you know I make chili each year. You may be tired of looking at the pictures, but I’m not tired of posting them 🙂
This might be the first time I got ALL the ingredients together for the set up pics.
The supermarket had a sale on Wagyu sirloin steak for the same price as the regular. Yes please.
The next course is served
On my next post I’ll be back on our Arizona trip.
