Jock's Good Grub: Sriracha Chicken Wings

Chicken wings, chicken wings, chicken wings, so many ways to cook and almost all are good. Most chicken wings found in restaurants are deep fried and coated with hot sauce. As the story goes the original chicken wing was concocted at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo New York, hence the name Buffalo Chicken Wing, clever.

Since I rarely, if ever, deep fry anything I make my chicken wings in the oven in the winter and on the grill in the summer. My personal favorite is the grill so anytime I see grilled chicken wings pop up on one of the barbecue blogs I follow I usually take note. That was the case a few weeks ago when I came across a blog post with grilled chicken wings using sriracha chili sauce. Since I happen to have the sriracha chili sauce in the frig, from a family recipe a few weeks ago, it just seemed like one of those moments when everything comes together and the subconscious says to me "Make these wings, make these wings." Since I can't find the original blog post you will have to follow along to find out how to make these sweet, spicy, delicious wings. I have changed the recipe from the original because I either 1) Didn't have the ingredients from the original recipe and need to substitute what I did have or 2) I needed to use up the ingredients I did have before I threw them out. Either way, the results speak for themselves.

Usually, I sprinkle a little seasoning on the wings and slap them on a hot grill but these wings need to be marinated. The cast of characters for this episode include (in no particular order):

3-4 pounds chicken wings

1 cup chicken broth

1/2 cup sriracha chili sauce

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 medium sized onion, chopped

2 tbsp garlic, minced

Salt

Pepper

Cajun seasoning (I use Emeril's Essence)

All ingredients get mixed together, other than the chicken wings and cajun seasoning, and set to the side. Next, time to get the chicken wings ready. I always start by cutting the wing tip off and discarding. After that, sometimes I'll cut the wing apart at the next joint but this time I decided to leave the wing whole. Next, sprinkle the chicken with the cajun seasoning, put in a resealable plastic bag, and pour the marinade over the wings. Put the wings in the frig and walk away, just walk away, for at least 2 hours and preferably overnight.

I let the chicken wings marinate overnight and what a night it was. Thunderstorms rolled through with winds up to 80 MPH and left 1.5 million people without electricity. We were lucky and got our electricity back early this morning and the second most important utility, the internet, back in the middle of the afternoon.

Now is the time to fire up the grill, don't need electricity for that, and get it ready to cook wings. The original recipe said to cook the wings in the marinating liquid for 45 minutes uncovered and then 45 minutes covered. Then, after that, grill over the hot coals, or flame if you use gas, while basting with the liquid. The first time I cooked wings using this recipe I did all that and the results were good but since I like to keep my chicken wings simple this time I cooked them over the hot coals until the skin was crispy and then finished them over indirect heat. However you choose to cook your wings they will turn out good either way.

Regardless how you decide to cook your wings, while the wings are cooking, it's time to make the chicken wing sauce. The classic sauce, and I think the original, is made up of Frank's Red Hot and butter. No doubt a good chicken wing sauce but when I saw this particular recipe with sriracha sauce (and if you remember I also had a bottle in the frig) I knew I needed to try it. The original recipe is as follows:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup of sriracha chili sauce
1/2 cup clover honey

Mix ingredients together.

Once again, since I didn't have any clover honey, although I did have regular honey, I decided to use barley malt instead, again left over from a previous recipe.

The barley malt definitely brings a different flavor to the party and one which I like. I should also mention I only use half the butter the original recipe calls for and only because I really don't need all that butter.