Chicken Wiings

Like I have said before, I'm not really a fan of meat on the bone for some reason. Chicken on the bone is my least favorite. But, I do love me some chicken wings. I also happen to make them pretty well.

We usually end up getting a family pack of wings to cook. Kevin also loves chicken wings. When you open th chicken, make sure you look over your chicken to see if there is any feathers or stuff to clean and pull off the wing, that part is kinda yuck.

The seasoning for this recipe is really easy. For me, simplicity usually makes food taste better. Dishes start tasting weird when I add more "stuff". I just use salt and lemon pepper. I don't measure the spices, I just add enough to make the wings well coated.

I preheat the oven to 450 degrees. I like cooking my chicken at a really high temperature first and then finishing it at a lower temperature. This makes the skin nice and crispy. I put the chicken in the 450 degree oven for 30 minutes.

Then I turn the oven down to 350 degrees and cook for another 30 minutes. Then i add on the barbecue sauce. I have yet to master making my own sauce. I want to make my own, and I will, soon. But, since I haven't, my favorite store bought sauce is Bulls-eye. They have a Texas style described as, "Smoky mesquite with the sting of hot peppers". That just sounded too good to pass up. You can of course use your favorite BBQ sauce.

So after 30 minutes I poured half the bottle over 2/3 of the wings. Kevin said he'd had barbecue chicken earlier and didn't want sauce on his (he later said he should have had me put sauce on all the wings because the sauce was so good. He really does need to start listening to me). I put them back in the oven at the same temperature for a final 30 minutes.

It sounds really simple, but it is very good.

Recipe:

5.34 lbs. chicken wings

about 1/4 cup lemon pepper seasoning

2 tbsp. kosher salt

1 1/2 cups barbecue sauce

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Sprinkle half of lemon pepper and salt on the wings after opening. Place the chicken wings in a dish, seasoned side down, big enough to lay each wing almost flat. Cover with rest of seasoning. Put wings in oven for 30 minutes. Turn oven down to 350 degrees. Leave chicken in for another 30 minutes. Take out wings and cover in barbecue sauce. Put back in oven for another 30 minutes. Take out of oven!

Crispy Skin is Good Skin

So about a month ago I bought what I thought was a whole chicken for roasting. Every once in a while my dad liked to roast a chicken and it always turned out really good, so I like to do that every so often. We were cleaning out the freezer and I saw it and put it in the fridge to thaw so I could make it. I took it out last night to make for dinner and it was a whole chicken, but for frying not roasting. This means it wasn't a little chicken turkey it was 4 leg/thighs thing. Oh well, Kevin says I'm an innovator, so we'll go with that.
I decided just to roast it in the oven the same way I was going to roast an entire chicken.

I cut up about 7 potatoes (Kevin said he really wanted potatoes..), 4 stalks of celery, 1 small onion, and threw in a handful of fresh thyme. I used this as a bed for my chicken. I also salted and peppered the "bed" to give it lots of flavor. I also liberally put salt and pepper all over the chicken.

I melted the stick of butter and about 1 cup of honey together in the microwave.  I mixed the two together with my pastry brush and proceeded to baste on that honey goodness. I basted it again after 20 minutes and then 40 minutes later and then the last 15 minutes of roasting.

I preheated the oven to 450 degrees and put the chicken in there for 20 minutes. I did thid so it would get a nice brown, crispy skin. Then I turned the oven down to 350 degrees and finished cooking it for 2 hours.

This is how it looked when finished:

The skin was sooooooo crispy and good! Now, if I had the whole chicken like I thought I would've, the potatoes would still have been a bed under the chicken.  The celery, onion, and thyme would have gone into the chicken's cavity to give it flavor from the inside out. The basting would have been the same. Here is the recipe for what I did:

Ingredients:

• 1 whole chicken
• 5 stalks of celery
• 7 potatoes
• 1 small onion
• handful of thyme
• salt
• pepper
• 1 stick butter
• 1 cup honey

Pre heat your oven to 450 degrees.  Cut up you veggies and lay them evenly in a baking dish. Put about 5 of the thyme sprigs around the top of your chicken "bed" and flavor with salt and pepper. Lay the chicken in the pan so as much of the skin is exposed to the heat as possible. Melt the stick of butter with the honey in the microwave or on the stove. Then baste 1/4 of the mixture on to the chicken. Sprinkle with salt and peeper. Lay the rest of the thyme on the top of the chicken. Put into the oven for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, turn oven down to 350 degrees. Baste chicken again with 1/4 more of the butter-honey mixture. After 40 minutes in the oven, baste again with 1/4 of the butter-honey. In 65 minutes, baste with the rest of the honey-butter. In 15 minutes, remove from oven and let rest 10 minutes before serving.  Enjoy your chicken!