Dennis's "Original" Recipe

From: Dennis Lynch via John David Auwen <auwen%convex@uunet.UU.NET>


                             ...I used to cook
wings for a living in Buffalo. Here's the deal:

1) Get some Durkee's Louisiana Hot Sauce. (It used to be called Franks,
   but I guess big business won out. Still tastes the same to me!).

2) Acquire some margarine. Only margarine works right (correct taste and
   resistance to burning). Neither oil nor butter will substitute.

3) So. Get the wings cut up, and start heating up the frying grease.
   Some revisionist (or health-conscious) types insist on other cooking
   methods, but there is nothing like the real crisp-on-the-outside
   moist-and-chewy-on-the-inside texture of fried wings.

4) Make up the sauce. Put the Durkees and margarine into a skillet or
   saute pan big enough to comfortably hold one fryer-load of wings. The
   total amount of sauce at once should be about 1/4" in the bottom of
   the pan. The proportions are:
   a) equal parts is the nominal starting point (called "medium" in
      Buffalo). A bit of tingle, but not very spicy.
   b) All Durkees doesn't taste as good, but is pretty hot. 3:1 Durkees
      to margarine is about as hot as I like it.
   c) For the really timid (like my 3-year-old) just a splash of Durkees
      in the margarine gives a little flavor but no noticable hot).

   The idea is to cook up the Durkees and margarine to a bit thicker
   consistency. It should simmer for 5 minutes or so, then be kept hot. A
   few obvious notes: You can make up just one batch of sauce for a bunch
   of wings. You can just add more ingredients to the pan as you use
   up the sauce. When you add more ingredients, you can adjust the
   spiciness. I use this to satisfy everybody: I start out with all the
   margarine I plan to use, and put in just a splash of Durkees. That
   makes a few wings for the three-year-old. Then a bunch more Durkees
   to make the wings the way my wife likes them. Still more Durkees to
   get it the way I like it.

5) Fry the wings. They're cooked when the bubbles slow down significantly.
   This takes seeing it once to know just how much bubbling corresponds
   to "done," but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to get it right.
   At home, I put the "drumettes" in first, because they take a minute
   or two longer to cook. As always with frying, be sure that you don't
   put in so much food that the temparature of the fat drops below 325
   or so, and have the heat on so it gets back up to 375 ASAP.

6) As the wings finish cooking, take them out and drain thoroughly. I
   generally put them in a strainer held over the fat. Don't pile them
   up in a bowl, or the fat will cool and congeal before it runs off!

7) Once the wings are drained, put them in the sauce and get the wings
   covered with sauce. The official restaurant way to do this is to toss
   them in the air, but your stove cleaner may not appreciate this...

8) Use tongs to pick the wings out of the pan and let the sauce drain off.
   Some restaurants toss the wings on a grill for a few seconds at this
   point to "bake on" the sauce.

9) Serve with celery sticks and blue cheese dressing on the side. Yes, the
   BCD *is* for the wings! But make sure it is good BCD, with nice chunks
   of good cheese. (One of the sadder realizations of my growing up is that
   there are some things you just can't get: restaurants get a special
   Kraft dressing that comes only in five-gallon containers that must be
   continuously refrigerated. Great stuff, not available to you and me.)