Peppered Wings

I just could stay away from the new grill tonight. One of the nice things about being your own boss is you can make your own hours. I didn’t take lunch today so I could have time tonight to make supper while it was still light. Tonights experiment and bill of fare was chicken wings. Up until now my choices were both compromises. I either did chicken wings on the smoker at low to medium temps and got good smoke flavor but somewhat rubbery skin. If I cooked the wings on the gas grill, I got crispy skin, but a hint of smoke from the smoker drawer. Wood chips just don’t give as much smoke as the wood chunks I use on the smoker. So tonight by cooking these wings at 450 I was hoping to hit the sweet spot: smoke flavor, crispy skin and oh yeah moist wings.

The recipe was called Peppered Wings with Caramelized Soy & Blackberry Gaze. from Big Bob Gibson’s Bar B Que Book. It used a quite spicy rub and a sweet oriental influenced glaze that gets applied at the end. The wings were indirect grilled with Hickory smoke for 30 minutes. To cut to the chase I now have it all: I got deep smoke flavor, crispy skin and moist wings. These were the best wings I have made from a technical standpoint. The recipe was excellent, but I really can’t wait to try my 3 favorite wing recipes on the Egg. These wings were a bit out of the ordinary, with the quite hot rubs and the sweet oriental influenced glaze. So in the 7 cooks I have made so far 4 have been my best efforts ever, one was a draw and the others were things I haven’t made before. Needless to say I love this grill.



The glaze consisted of: soy sauce, mirin (sweet rice vinegar), sugar & blueberry jam.




The glaze was simmered for 30 minutes to reduce and thicken it.




The rub used smoked paprika, black pepper, white pepper, cayenne pepper, brown sugar & salt.




The finished rub.




The chicken wings and rub were placed together in a ziplock bag and tossed to distribute the rub.




The egg is set up for indirect grilling with the Platesetter installed legs up. The grill is at 450 and I used one fist size hickory chunk for smoke. The wings have just been put on.




Here we are 15 minutes into the 30 minute cook. It is time to flip the wings.




It has been 30 minutes and the wings are ready to come off the grill. The wings get placed in a bowl and tossed with the glaze. I also reserved some of the glaze for use at the table.




The wings have been dunked into the Soy/Blueberry glaze and have been plated and were served along with some shoestring fries.




The wings had a wonderfully crispy skin and wonderful smoke flavor. The rub was quite spicy, but the sweet glaze helped offset and compliment the rub.






So now I know I can turn out amazing wings on the Egg. Life just keeps getting better and better.

About a week ago there were comments about wings being their own food group. My take on that is wings are a great appetizer, but they are an even better meal unto themselves.

Jim

Looks awesome Jim. You are cranking out some great food!

Buckeye Bob

Looks like you are having a blast and great food with the new grill.

Thanks guys. Yeah I gotta admit this may be the most fun I've had with this hobby. The possibilities seem limited only by my limited imagination. I'm turning out amazing meals with very little work on my part. It seems too good to be true.

Jim

Your wings look really, really good, Jim my friend! I am glad you are so delighted. Just seeing the results of all your recent cooks makes me an honorary member of sorts of the BGE club-- Big Green Envy, that is.

Awesome looking wings.

Thanks guy and gal!

beercuer wrote:

Your wings look really, really good, Jim my friend! I am glad you are so delighted. Just seeing the results of all your recent cooks makes me an honorary member of sorts of the BGE club-- Big Green Envy, that is.

Be very very careful beercuer, in my own experience that is the first step down the road to purchasing.

As more people around here started getting their Eggs, I could see firsthand their good results and I became more aware of just how versatile it was-I started thinking. At first I was thinking: "Gee this might be a good cooker to take some of the load off my gas grill and CG, neither of them are getting any younger". I never figured it on it almost completely replacing them. Now I am looking for use cases to find an excuse to use the gas grill or CG. The best I can do so far is hot dogs on the grill are at least as good, and I could always use them to smoke or grill vegetables while I'm doing something else on the egg. Just like me, my grill and smoker are being assimilated! You've been warned!

Jim

That is awesome, Jim. Wonderful pictures and it sounds like a great flavor contrast between the heat of the rub and the sweetness of the sauce. I think it was probably me (or in one of my threads) about wings being their own food group. At least, Mrs. G says that about me.

If you are doing something that is going to drip a lot, you might want to put a layer of foil on your place setter to catch the drippings. Its not needed, but it makes clean up a lot easier. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. It'll just burn off on your next pizza cook anyway.

What are your 3 favorite wing recipes?

Wings look tasty... as I have said before... they are their own food group.

Thanks Griffin.They really were excellent. Great idea about the aluminum foil. I was thinking of using a foil pan but the Yankee in me didn't want to waste the good foil pan. Also I was afraid it would overhang the Platesetter and mess up the heat flow. Thanks for a great suggestion!

Griffin wrote:

What are your 3 favorite wing recipes?

Hot Wings- Serious Barbecue Adam Perry Lang
Calgary Hot Wings - SR BBQU
Piri-Piri Wings - Planet Barbecue

On a given day SR's Louisville Wings could replace one of his other two recipes on that list.

Actually the BGE won't make any difference on the Hot Wings recipe, because you cook the wings in liquid in a foil pan that is covered. Even if you were to throw them on the grill for a little crisp up I don't think in five minutes you're going to notice the difference between a high heat gas grill and the BGE. The wings are already too hot to absorb any smoke.

Let me ask you: what are your favorite three wing recipes?

Jim

Nice! Those wings look perfect. The egg is so easy to use and hassle-free that it feels like you are cheating, doesn't it?

jfm0830 wrote:

About a week ago there were comments about wings being their own food group. My take on that is wings are a great appetizer, but they are an even better meal unto themselves.

That's because when they're an appetizer there either aren't enough of them or you have to stop eating them so you don't ruin the main course, but when they're the meal there are no limits.

Dyal_SC wrote:

Nice! Those wings look perfect. The egg is so easy to use and hassle-free that it feels like you are cheating, doesn't it?

It sure does!! When I was cooking my brisket I stuck around for an hour so to make sure the temperature was stable. Then I took off and ran a bunch of local errands which ended up taking me two hours. I NEVER would've done that with the CG. With the CG I use to sweat going around the corner to the local Quickie Mart for 10 minutes if I was missing some ingredient for something else I was making. Friday when I came back from my two hours of errands, the BGE was still rat 225 ight where I left it.

For last nights wings I spent most of the time in the kitchen while they were cooking. I hardly feel like you're doing anything. But then again I'm certainly not complaining and the results speak for themselves. And someone, I can't remember who and it might've even been you said that they kept finding excuses to cook because it was so fun using the BGE. I was guilty of that. I wasn't planning on cooking last night but I did. I wasn't planning on cooking tonight but I am.

Jim

I'm sure I speak for everyone, but we're sure glad you got an Egg.

I was missing your grill episodes and am excited to see the renewed vigor. Keep it up!

Married_Man wrote:

I'm sure I speak for everyone, but we're sure glad you got an Egg.

I was missing your grill episodes and am excited to see the renewed vigor. Keep it up!

Thanks so much Married Man. It actually wasn't so much the Egg. I felt a pent up burst of cooking inside me anyway. The last few months have been kind of tough around here for many reasons. I've been either too busy with other things, I,ve not been around, have no one but me to cook for or some combination of all 3. Another thing is I was given a KitchenAid stand mixer, and I've been doing a lot of baking. If I'm baking I'm not grilling, although this may change with the BGE too. I may try my hand at baking tonight for the first time.

So the reality is I would've started cooking again in a big way, because I've missed it. The one thing the Egg has done is I don't mind cooking for myself now because it doesn't seem like a waste. I can experiment and not worry about ruining a meal for other folks. But truth be told I'm having a ball! Thanks again for your kind words.

Jim