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Cooking Wings for Your Football Party

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Wings Know How

Few things in life say football and party like chicken wings. Hot wings are a staple menu item in sports bars all over the US and deep frying or roasting are the most popular methods of cooking wings. Some BBQ joints offer smoked wings.

I think wings have been relegated to sports bars and wing shops for far too long—wings are amenable to many flavor profiles and cooking methods. I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t braise them and let them crisp up in the pan! I don’t follow a recipe but boldly mix flavors and techniques to achieve wings that are specialized beyond the humble sports bar wings. Here are some ideas to fix wings your own way.

Rubbing and Marinating

The great thing about chicken wings is they can take more intense flavors. You can easily use rubs and marinades that are designed more for red meat and pork rather than poultry.

Rubs

Tony Chachere’s Original Creole Seasoning  is what I use the most for a wing rub. It has great flavor, no MSG, and it is always in my kitchen. Also carried here at Wheatsville, The Paleo Powder is a no-gluten no-MSG product made here in Texas, and the Salt Lick makes a couple of rub options. Lemon Pepper is another great flavor.

Marinades

Like rubs, you can use just about anything for marinating wings. Try one of the Wheatsville Marinades like Teriyaki or Mojo. Howard Miller, S. Lamar Meat Dept. Supervisor, likes to mix ranch dressing or buttermilk with Yellowbird Sauce.

Sauce

I like to make a kitchen sink sort of sauce, but Sriracha is pretty much always an ingredient. Vinegar is always a good addition, along with some sort of fat. I usually use a mild oil like canola, but butter is the traditional way to go. I then add a little mustard and honey and start adding hot sauces like Yellowbird.

If you don’t want to make your own sauce, there are plenty of excellent premade sauces. I really like the Stubb’s Wing Sauce. The Texas Texas Dang Good Sauce is an all around good sauce for anything and goes well with wings.

Bringing It All Together

If you are deep frying wings, use a rub, fry them, and then toss them in sauce,
but I usually roast them. I rub them and put them in the oven without sauce until they start to dry out, about 10 minutes, then I start basting them. I remove them from the oven and toss them in sauce several times during cooking. 
You can also dredge them in a flour and rub mixture and just let them be in the oven. The flour gives them a nice crust that is like fried chicken. The rub added to the flour kicks up the flavor.

I cook them for no less than 45 minutes at 375°– 400° F, but I open the oven four times to baste and my family likes a little carbon on their wings. If you leave the oven closed, use the lower temperature for a few less minutes.

Sometimes having loose suggestions rather than a set recipe is intimidating but wings can be a great way to stretch out and share some adventure with your family and friends—especially with beer and sports!

Howard’s Yellowbird Buffalo Wings

1 lb chicken wings, separated at joints, discard the tips
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/3 cup ranch dressing
several squirts of Yellowbird Habanero Sauce
¾ cup flour
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon onion powder

Mix the butter, ranch dressing, and Yellowbird sauce. Coat the wings and let the wings marinade in the mixture for a couple hours in the fridge in a large storage bag.

Preheat Oven to 425°F.

Coat wings with with seasoned flour (flour, salt,  black pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder) and arrange a single layer of wings on a lightly greased baking sheet. Adorn each wing with a little melted butter.

Bake in the preheated oven until the chicken is no longer pink in the center, and crispy on the outside, about 35-45 minutes. Turn the wings over halfway during cooking so they cook evenly.

Stock Options at Wheatsville

My family has been using stock in our home for many years now. I try to make enough stock to get through the summer, which helps keep the kitchen cooler in the summer and warmer in the …colder months. Stock is really quite simple, a broth that is made with bones. The collagen content of the bones, when extracted turns into gelatin. This gelatin has nutritive and culinary properties that are beneficial.

I use the same basic ingredients when I make stock:
• 3 stalks of Celery
• 3 carrots
• 1 medium to large onion
• 3-5 cloves of garlic
• Cracked Peppercorns
• Salt (optional)
• One bunch of parsley

Beef Bones
I like a combination of neck, round/femur/marrow, and knuckle. Any of these by themselves would be great. If you are looking for a lighter clear stock-do not roast your beef bones, this would be great for Beef Pho. If you want a deeper flavor and a dark colored stock- roast them at 350 for about 45 minutes. Let them cool and pour about a cup of vinegar (I use white vinegar for this-the acid helps  to start extracting the collagen) and let them sit for an hour.

Chicken Bones
I will use a whole chicken and take off the meat after cooking and use it for chicken salads or enchiladas. We also carry some soup bones from Dewberry Hills. This is the best Chicken we sell. They are fed Locally raised corn and soy and are moved around Jane and Terry’s farm in pens. These pens keep them safe from predators and other conditions while letting them engage with the outdoors. I also use Dewberry chicken feet in my stock. Pour about a cup of vinegar over the carcasses (if you are using a whole bird, cut off the wings and separate the drumette from the flapper-we also have Freebird Chicken Backs, and wings are a great part to use here) let them sit for an hour.

Pork and Lamb Bones
We are a little more limited in this area, but we do usually have some pork and lamb bones and they would be dealt with exactly like beef.

Easy Cooking Instructions

1. Coarsely chop your vegetables (except parsley) and toss into your stock pot.
2. Fill with water to about an inch or an inch and a half above your ingredients.
3. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer. You can add salt if you would like. I have always left it out and salted when I was making a dish.
4. Cook for at least four hours. I cook mine for 12 hours for chicken and sometimes for days with beef.
5. After you strain out the solids, put your stock into a container and put it into the refrigerator overnight or in the freezer for a couple of hours (it is best to let the stock get to room temperature before chilling). This gets the fat to float to the top and solidify. I have had good results using the 2 court wide mouth mason jars. You can also use that rendered fat puck that forms at the top of the jar in other places in the kitchen like refried beans or even in biscuits. There is a kitchen gadget ingeniously called a fat separator ,that will do this for you must quicker than chilling.
6. Fill ice trays for smaller portions of your stock for things like sauces or pour it into quart size freezer to be frozen and used at you leisure.

Easy Chicken Stock from the Co+op Kitchen

Roasts

Roasts can be very intimidating. They are large, expensive pieces of meat that are loaded with family memories of the perfect bite or flashbacks of scorched leather. Cooking a roast is actually pretty simple. Like most things in the world of meat, it is not all that complicated, it’s just pretty easy to mess up.  Now you need to choose a roast. For the sake of this article, we will consider beef roasts.

Rib Roast and Tenderloin Roast
The royalty of roasts! Perfectly marbled, tender and delicious.

Eye of Round Roast
Similar to a tenderloin and very lean.

Chuck Eye Roast
An extension of the rib eye that carries over into the chuck and is therefore very similar. These would be dry heat roasts and you would use the oven to cook them.

After you pick your roast, you are three steps from a fantastic family meal center piece.

1. Rub It
   Do you want an herby crust? Spicy? Simple? You can do whatever you want here. Just make sure there is plenty of salt. Salt brings out the natural flavors of the roast and helps to form that crust that really makes a strong roast.
2. Cook It
   Even if you only use it a couple times a year, do yourself a favor and invest in an oven probe thermometer. They can be found for as little as $20 and they are an indispensible kitchen gadget. Just set your desired temperature and wait for it to get there.  Do you sear it? I think you do. While it does not actually caramelize, searing meat is the closest way to achieve that end and I think it brings enough flavor to the party to justify it.
   
   All of the other questions of cooking are subject to debate. Some people swear by high temperature roasting. Some use lower temperatures. There are tricks to retain moisture or maintain a crust. The most important thing through all of it is the internal temperature of the roast and since you’re waiting for that alarm to go off at 135 to 140 degrees for your medium rare roast then you have already nailed it.
3. Let It Rest
   Some consider this the most important step. I would suggest covering it with foil to maintain some of the surface heat. The temperature will continue to rise for a few minutes while all of the juices that have balled up in the center redistribute themselves back into the roast. You should let it rest for about 20 minutes. It will be hard, but it will be well worth the wait for that moist and juicy, perfectly cooked roast.

Chicken Wings for Football Season

Making your own chicken wings is super easy, but I think the proliferation of wing restaurants has given the illusion that cooking wings is too much for the home cook. This is not true. They are easy, so easy in fact, that there are several methods you can use.

Deep Frying

I don't do this for wings, personally, but the idea is pretty simple-light seasoned breading-fry in oil until done and toss them in sauce.

Baking

This would be the way to get that texture of frying without the frying. Dredge in flower and toss in your sauce of choice. Pop them in the oven until the crust is firm and crispy.

Roasting & Basting

This is the method I use the most. Season with your favorite rub and put into the oven for 10 minutes. Let the skin dry out a little so that it can take on sauce. I put sauce in a stainless steel bowl and dump the wings in to toss. I put them back on the tray and return them to the oven for another 10 minutes. I do this three times.

One thing to look out for if you are basting or baking your wings is how much sugar is in your sauce.Too much sugar will burn and carbonize your wings. I like a little carbon and crunch, but it can be easy to overdo.

I use a 350 degree oven, others use hotter-up to 425 degrees, but you are still talking about 30 to 40 minutes in the oven. I know it sounds crazy, you can roast a whole chicken in that amount of time and these are little bitty wings, but you do want them to slide off the bone.

There are so many options for wings, from rubs to sauces and even marinades. Avoid marinating in highly acidic marinades as it will start the cooking process which you do not want with wings. They can pack a lot of flavor so make something bold and crazy.

Great for Grilling: Smart Chicken and Niman Ranch Meats

SMART CHICKEN

Smart Chickens are raised in a free range environment by family farmers without the use of antibiotics, hormones or animal by-products. The Organic Line is Third Party certified humane. Tecumseh Farms is committed to environmental stewardship. Their facilities are surrounded by the farms where the grain to feed the chicken is grown, which saves energy on grain-hauling. They’re located close to one of the world’s largest natural aquifers, so their water use, which is already reduced because of the air-chilling, has no adverse affect on area water resources. The combination of environmental stewardship, humane treatment, and a safe product that has superior flavor makes Smart Chicken the premium value.

I had the opportunity to visit some of the Tecumseh Farms Smart Chicken facilities. I saw the land and barns where the organic lines of chickens are raised and the two processing facilities in the Omaha, Nebraska area.

The farms raising certified organic Smart Chicken  are also third party certified humane. The barns are clean and free of odor; the chickens are happy and laid back. Temperature and moisture are monitored and maintained by computers to ensure a comfortable environment for the chickens. The chickens have free access to the outdoors through open doors spaced every couple of feet all along the side of the 750 ft. long barn. We saw some chickens playing outside and some of them had escaped the pen area. It was pretty entertaining.

The non-certified organic line of Smart Chicken is raised on twenty-seven family owned farms. The entire line cannot get third party humane certification since these farms are owned by individual families and have a variety of barn configurations. Regardless, the ideals and standards are the same for all of the farms.

One thing that differentiates Smart Chicken from other larger chicken growers is the farmers’ commitment to proper care and welfare for the animals. Humane treatment not only contributes to a superior product and earns the trust of consumers, but is also just the right thing to do.

The standards that Smart Chicken brings to the table are unsurpassed by other U.S. chicken growers. For example, the CAS system of changing the oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to stun the chickens before the processing procedure begins is a practice brought in from Europe.

Air chilling is another practice that separates Smart Chicken from other growers. Instead of using a chlorinated communal bath to lower their temperature, they are cooled by using only cold air. This process is cleaner and keeps additional water weight out of the birds. Since this is a fairly new procedure to the U.S., there are not yet standards for process or labeling.

But the real story is of a company that believes in doing the right things for the right reasons. This progressive company is a leader in their:

• use of technology to produce a clean, superior product
• concern for animal welfare
• providing safe and good quality jobs
• keeping high standards despite costs
• managing shipping costs by placing their farms and facilities strategically.

They believe that by treating animals and people properly they can maintain the highest quality of chicken and can cultivate trust in their product and their company.

NIMAN RANCH

• Niman Ranch raises livestock traditionally, humanely and sustainably to produce the finest tasting meat in the world.
• Niman Ranch works with the largest network of sustainable US family farmers and ranchers - 700 and growing.
• ALL animals are raised outdoors or in deeply bedded pens.
• Livestock raising protocols were developed with the help of animal welfare expert Dr. Temple Grandin, and are the strictest in the industry.
• Niman Ranch offers a complete line of fresh beef, pork, lamb, poulty, cage-free eggs and a variety of smoked and cured meats. Niman ranch is leading the industry in sustainable and humane agricultural practices.

Grate for Grilling :)

I am pretty sure that Texans would love to think that they invented grilling. While I am pretty sure they did not, I would not be surprised if Texas was not responsible for some perfecting. In all likely hood, the grill would have been one of the earliest ways to cook. We have come from spit roasting over an open fire to the propane grill. Oddly enough, grilling is heavily associated with the summer (seems a little counterintuitive to stand around a 300 degree fire in 100 degree weather, but I guess that's why there is beer). I think grilling is for the whole year, but there is something to be said for not turning on the oven or stove in our wickedly hot Texas summers. On that front, the crock pot or slow cooker would also be perfect for the summer.

I would like to provide a few thoughts on grilling here. First off-the charcoal chimney. This is an amazing tool for the grill. Top of the line models are under $30 dollars. My $20 Webber one has been around for about 5 years and I can't imagine it not lasting for at least another five. This tool requires coals (put in the top of the chimney), newspaper (put in the bottom of the chimney) and an incendiary device (matches or lighter). Just light the newsprint at the bottom. Newsprint works best. The heavier the paper is the harder it is to keep it burning. The holes at the bottom and up the sides of the chimney allow plenty of oxygen through to keep the flames stoked and to get those coals good and hot in about 10-15 minutes. As the coals begin to get grey, dump them into your grill.

When I grill, I try to cook the entire meal on the grill. It brings a similar flavor to the meal, and lets face it, if you use charcoal you might as well get as much as you can out of your time investment. Those coals have a limited life span and temperature peak—you might as well cook as much as you can. I like grilling corn on the cob, asparagus, broccolini, tomatoes. jalapeños wrapped in bacon and stuffed with cheese.

There are a few tricks that will be helpful in a great grilling experience. The fat content of what you cook will determine how much flare up you get. This includes marinades. If your asparagus is dripping olive oil directly over a flame, it is going to flare up. If you are cooking a ribeye over the hottest part of the grill, it is going to have some char. I like carbon and I think it is a legitimate and valuable component to the flavor profile of grilling, but I do like to keep it in check. If you are going to grill fattier steaks like ribeyes, I recommend using indirect heat by putting them outside of the area of the coals.  In the case of grilling veggies, I recommend those goofy baskets. I hate seeing delicious green beans getting burnt to a crisp after they fell through the grate.

Lubrication is also a vital player in your grilling. Even if what you are grilling has oil or fat, get more oil on your grate. You want to do it after it has heated up, so that the grate absorbs the fat.

Seafood, other than shellfish, may need a basket. Flaky fish will come apart. One way to combat this is to grill your fish with the skin on. It brings structure and I feel like it adds flavor. But shellfish just need the kiss of the flames. You can even grill mussels and clams. Just wait till they open and do not spill the liquor they leave in their shells.

I hope these tips are helpful and bring some great grilling this summer.

Slicing and Dicing

You may have noticed that the Meat Department is now slicing your deli style meats. Along with some familiar names we are bringing in some new players and some more options from your favorites.

More uncured and cured options—what does that mean?

It means that the USDA requires processors who do not add salt cure or sodium nitrate /nitrite to their products to label it as uncured. Nitrate/nitrite occurs naturally in some vegetables and leafy greens. Some producers use these nitrates instead of ones that are combined with sodium to cure their meats. All of these products use some form of curing to help preserve them.

We offer cured turkey and ham as well as uncured turkey and ham from Boar’s Head. These are great selections from a very recognizable national brand.

Cured choices:

• Roasted Smoked Turkey,
• Mesquite Smoked Turkey,
• Sweet Sliced Smoked Ham
• Peppered Ham
• Black Forest Ham

Boar's Head All Natural

• Smoked Turkey
• Roasted Turkey
• Tuscan Turkey
• Applewood Smoked Ham
• All Natural Roast Beef.

We also offer some uncured Niman Ranch meats:

• The Uncured Corned Beef is brined and roasted—a traditional corned beef that will make any sandwich fantastic.
• Niman Ranch Beef Pastrami. Get ready to make your own Rueben with Niman Ranch Pastrami and any one of the delicious sauerkrauts that Wheatsville offers.
• Jambon Royal Ham. Fantastic! Made in a more European Style, this equates to a stronger smoke and salt flavor that comes out with the applewood smoking. One of the best Hams I’ve eaten and now you can get it sliced for a sandwich or cut into as small a piece as you would like!

Dewberry Hills Farm Chicken

Photo courtesy of Thomas Winslow

One of the great things about buying from local farms is being able to shake the hand of the person growing your food. I always look forward to seeing Jane & Terry Levan. They own and operate one of my favorite farms that we do business with -  Dewberry Hills Farm. Over the years, I have been able to bring in hearts and livers, frozen frames and even chicken feet and our owners and shoppers have been eager to use it all. Those chicken feet are a great source of collagen by the way, and are great for making rich, flavorful stock. Dogs love them for snacks, too!

The great care and treatment of the chickens from Dewberry Hills come through in every aspect. These birds are carried around the farm under the protection of moveable tents that help keep them safe from weather and predators. They are fed locally raised grains. In pasture, they are able to eat bugs and small rocks which aids their digestion.

Terry and Jane have decided to grow with Wheatsville and are expanding their operations while we grow our co-op economy with our second store. I have also heard plans of an organic line down the road. Check out their website to learn more about their story and check out some of the restaurants and spas that serve their really good chicken.