Red Pepper Chicken Wings

Sunday Afternoon

This post is nearly a year old. Well, not the post. It’s new. The handwritten draft and the recipe are nearly a year old: 9/5/15, to be exact. Somehow, this keeps slipping under the radar, three sheets of yellow notepaper migrating to the bottom of various piles in the IK study. Each time I cook this, I vow to blog it, to get it down, to–and this is where I keep messing up–take its picture.

Photographs of red pepper chicken wings do exist. There were taken in September 2015, during the IK’s early days. And that’s exactly what they look like.

Since then, I’ve grown more skilled at cooking/wiping my hands/frantically rushing into the front room to shoot a greasy hot chicken/rushing said bird back to the stove without smearing my precious Nikon.

So last week, the IK prepared red pepper chicken wings once more, tweaking the recipe a bit, all to the good, mind you, whilst remembering to take pictures.

Except, I forgot, please don’t ask why, the final, most important shot, what WordPress calls the “featured image.” This is the finished, glistening product, the food porn shot that sucks you in, conning you into reading the post, maybe sharing it around, perhaps even encouraging you to actually cook the chicken.

The thing is, we here at the IK love chicken. We so love chicken that as poor, starving grad students, any windfalls were immediately spent on chicken. Not steak, not ground beef, not pasta. Nope: chicken. When our financial aid ran out and one of us briefly took up a career in the exotic dance industry (clue: it was not him), those dollar tips were carefully smoothed out and spent at the market on…you guessed it: chicken.

(Exotic what? Well, Blaze Starr I wasn’t. Like I said, the career was brief.)

All to say we ate those wings right up. It wasn’t until the dishes were washed and I turned to wrapping up the greasy, denuded bones, intent on freezing them for a future stock, that I realized: no featured image. Uh, oops.* So I’m writing this on a Sunday. Tomorrow I plan do the marketing, buy more wings, and prepare red pepper chicken wings. Again. This time, barring unforeseen attacks of tendonitis/unanticipated social media assaults/and etc, as the old English literature books say, I will do my utmost, nay, my damnedest, to get the featured image. And together, friends, we will partake of red pepper chicken wings with utmost relish.

*Not what was actually said.

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Wednesday Morning and Afternoon

So, hi.

Here we are. And, lo, there’s a featured image! Two featured images! Ain’t life grand?

Well, okay. Maybe not. But hey, we’re here. I used to have this philosophy professor, a sort of peculiar fellow, but also quite brilliant. He’d burst into class, always late, and exclaim, “So this is life!”

So this is life. With red pepper chicken wings. These wings, they’re very moreish, as the Brits say. Sticky, spicy without taking your head off, with the merest edge of sweetness. Don’t even think of using silverware. Instead, you want very damp towels. Or baby wipes.

Red pepper chicken wings are wonderful at any temperature or time of day. Two pounds feeds two people with a little left for lunch….but we’re rather delicate eaters. I’d suggest making lots, very honestly, because even in the IK, red pepper chicken wings vanish with shocking speed.

Those of you inclined toward a dipping sauce might jazz up a little yogurt. Don’t add anything spicy; think cooling. For once I omitted garlic. A few slices of scallion, a few squeezes of lemon juice. That was it. Alongside I served a salad of fresh corn and fava beans with a little ricotta salata. Although the cheese wasn’t necessary–it needed using up–it was wonderful, adding a nice bit of punch. At this time of year (early August) sliced tomatoes accompany every meal.

Bones can be frozen for wonderful stock. And those of you wanting a milder meal could certainly use less red pepper. Or if like me, food cannot be hot enough, by all means increase the pepper.

About the pepper: my first outing used Korean hot pepper flakes. These:

Then I realized some of you may not have ready access to Korean markets, so I tried the recipe with plain red pepper flakes. Both work beautifully. The Korean red pepper gives a darker coating to the wings and a thicker mouthfeel. The spice level is moderate with both.

I’ve also used fresh lemongrass and star anise in the recipe. While I prefer lemongrass, star anise is also good, and more readily available for some readers. Don’t use both. If you opt for star anise, use only one or your marinade will taste medicinal.

I used lime here, but lemon can certainly pinch-hit.

Finally, anyone preferring a fork-and-knife meal could make this with bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs.