Modern Nature: Food: Buffalo Wings

Buffalo wings are a weakness of ours but they tend to be obscenely overpriced. We've tried making them at home, but we've usually chickened out and just gone with a simple (although likely healthier) oven baked or broiled method. This time, however, we were craving the real thing so we decided to go all in.

In the past we've eyed some deep fryers but we've always been skeptical of their small size---the biggest mistake when deep frying is not maintaining a constant temperature, especially once you add the food. The small deep fryers just don't seem like they have enough heat capacity to avoid a sudden and disastrous drop in temperature. The problem is that you get greasy food if you don't maintain the right frying temperature---at lower temperatures, the oil can soak into the food. If you can keep it hot, the oil fries the food surface and doesn't have time to seep in, resulting in surprisingly non-greasy food. It may not be healthy, but at least it's healthier. So instead of buying a deep fryer, we've started using our Dutch oven. It takes a while to heat up, but the cast iron helps retain the heat even when you add in cold food. Plus, it feels like you have better control over the heat using your gas stove.

We dried the wings as much as we could (any residual water can result in soggy skin, as well as dangerous steam causing the oil to pop) and then deep fried them in two shifts---first at 250 'C for five minutes to cook the meat and then at 350 'C for five minutes to crisp up the skin. We then removed the wings, drained the oil, and then tossed them in some buffalo sauce (1/2 cup melted butter with 1 cup Franks hot sauce with some Tobasco to taste).