Hot & spicy chicken wings

I only make this meal very occasionally.  That’s because every time I buy a whole chicken, I cut off the wings before using the carcass to make stock, and stick them in a bag in the freezer.  Since we don’t eat much meat, it takes months to get enough wings together, but it’s totally worth it when you do.

You can pair the chicken wings with anything – this time I went for home made bread, corn on the cobs and a big salad, but I’ve done spicy wedges before instead of the bread, and other salads would work well too.  The wings are traditionally served with a blue cheese dip, but I just went for a dollop of natural yoghurt as an easier and slightly healthier option.

Hot & Spicy Chicken Wings (serves two with leftovers)

• 6-8 chicken wings (I used 8 and had 1 1/2 wings left, so I’d increase to 9-10 to serve three or 12-14 to serve four)
• 50g butter, melted
• 1 tbsp oil
• 2 tsp paprika
• 2 tsp cayenne pepper (I used one but it wasn’t hot enough for us)
• 2-3 tsp tabasco sauce
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tsp oregano

Take the first chicken wing and pull it out to stretch it.  With a large, sharp knife, cut into the two joints to separate the wing into three pieces, as shown.  Discard the tip of the wing (the segment to the far right; you can keep them to add to stock if you want), leaving you with two edible pieces.  Do the same with each wing, leaving you with 16 pieces when using 8 wings.

Put the wings into a large bowl.  Mix the ingredients for the marinade together and pour over the wings.  Don’t worry if the butter solidifies when poured on the cold chicken – use your hands to rub it in well.  Leave, covered, for an hour or two in the fridge.

Preheat the oven to 200C.  Arrange the chicken pieces on a baking tray and bake for 25 minutes.  Serve with salads, bread and/or wedges – I had the leftovers the next day with a red pepper & red onion salad and some more bread.

Haven’t costed this recipe as it was a bit difficult to work out the cost of the wings.

Crusty No-Knead Bread (makes one small loaf, enough for four people to share)

This is based on the Boule recipe from “Five Minute Bread” by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François, scaled down to make one loaf.

• 190ml warm water, not too hot
• 1/2 tbsp easy-blend yeast 11p
• 1/2 tbsp salt (less than 1/4p)
• 225g strong white flour 8p

Measure the water and and yeast into a bowl and add the flour and salt.  Mix in, adding slightly more water if necessary to get a slightly wet, sticky dough.  Cover and leave to rise for around two or three hours.

Dust the top of the dough and cover your hands in flour.  The dough will be sticky, so keep your hands floured as you handle it.  Pull each side down and round to create a ball with a tight top and bunched-together bottom.  Place on a well-floured baking tray, cover and leave to rise for 40-60 minutes.

Place an empty roasting tin on the bottom of the oven and preheat to 220C for 20-40 minutes, to get it really hot.  Take a bread knife and slash diagonally across the loaf, then pop the bread in the oven*.

Throw a small cup of hot water into the empty roasting tin and close the oven door.  Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the crust is dark and the bread has a hollow sound when the bottom is tapped.

* The bottom of the bread will only get crusty if a pizza stone is used – I don’t have one, but if you do, you can preheat that in the oven and then slide the bread onto it using a pizza peel or similar.

Around 19p per loaf.  You can substitute some or all of the white flour with brown (I might try this next time), though it will up the price a little and won’t get properly crusty.

EDIT Just realised I made a mistake above (thanks Mum!) – it’s 12p for the flour so 23p for whole loaf.  It’s been a long day!