Super Bowl Fun

Since Superbowl Sunday is upon us once again, Go Blue dad and I decided to try to make some homemade hot wings or buffalo wings. My only request was that we try to bake/roast them instead of frying them.

As accompaniments, we made a deviled dip with crostini and mexican corn on the cob (has a mayo/sour cream/cheese spread on top of grilled corn). We recommend the dip and despite using a recipe for the corn from one of our most trusted sources, it did not turn out, so it's not worth any more blog space.


For the wings/drumsticks:

We reviewed several recipes and settled on two online recipes and a packet of buffalo wing seasoning that I found at the store.

• Food and Wine Recipe: http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/baked-buffalo-chicken-wings
• Food Network - Alton Brown Recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/good-eats/buffalo-wings-recipe/index.html
• McCormick Buffalo Wing Seasoning packet

We had 48 wings and drumsticks and ended up creating six different combinations for our wings/drumsticks:

1. Buffalo Seasoning Only
   
2. Alton Sauce/Recipe Only
3. Buffalo Seasoning with Alton Sauce
4. Buffalo Seasoning with Food & Wine Sauce
5. Food and Wine Seasoning with Alton Sauce
6. Food and Wine Seasoning with Food and Wine Sauce

This photo shows the Food and Wine Seasoning with Alton Sauce (top) and Food and Wine Seasoning with Food and Wine Sauce (bottom).

This photo shows the Buffalo Seasoning with Alton Sauce (top) and Buffalo Seasoning with Food and Wine Sauce (bottom).

This photo shows the Alton Sauce recipe only (top) and the Buffalo Seasoning (bottom).


The photo below shows which wings/drumsticks were the hits as only the sauce remains. Alton Brown's sauce of butter and hot sauce (we used Frank's hot sauce as recommended by Food and Wine) tasted the best and most authentic if you've had wings at BW's or other famous wing joints. In the future we will certainly use Alton Brown's recipe for sauce on the wings.


While the combination of Food and Wine's seasoning (oil, garlic and cayenne and salt) tasted good with Alton's sauce, you didn't notice the taste enough to make it worth the extra effort in the future.

I had high hopes for Food and Wine's overall recipe, but the sauce (ketchup, hot sauce and vinegar) was just overwhelmed by the ketchup and general thickness of the sauce. However, the blue cheese dressing portion of the Food and Wine recipe is great and worked quite well with Alton's sauce, so we will keep using that in the future.

We plan to ditch the Buffalo Seasoning dry rub packet - mild flavor alone and didn't mesh well with sauce - left a weird taste in your mouth and the texture was off - gummy/gritty.
As noted above, we made the blue cheese sauce from the Food and Wine recipe (highly recommended) and served the wings with celery sticks - is there any other way?

DEVILED EGG DIP
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/deviled-dip-recipe/index.html

Upon making the dip, we noticed that the ingredients didn't stand out and only tasted egg. So, we doubled the mustard (dijon in this case), pickle, hot sauce, paprika, salt and pepper. Even after doubling several ingredients, it created a soft, subtle deviled dip that worked well with the spice from the hot wings.

The current combination blends nicely and leaves a smooth, creamy dip. We may triple the ingredients outside of the eggs and mayo just to see if it improves the dip or ruins the way it comes together.

Regardless, it's an easy recipe that people should enjoy, especially if they like deviled eggs. We served it with crostini, but it would work well on pita chips or bagel chips and possibly with some nice small ham slices or crispy ham pieces.

Kaitlyn was a trooper while we were in the kitchen today, which we much appreciated!! However, now we are exhausted, but it was a fun experiment since we know what sauce to use to make wings in the future. We may try more of a roasting method than the steam/roast method as used per Alton's recipe just for fun!