Elephant & Castle chicken wings? Read first post!

Pot wrote:

Elephant & Castle Buffalo sauce

3rd cup of franks

4 knobs of butter

and 2 knobs of Light Philadelphia cheese

splash of white vinegar

heat up bring to boil and then 15 mins under grill

Super i tell thee Super

That sounds like a decent recipe, but I would question the boiling part?

Pot wrote:

Elephant & Castle Buffalo sauce

3rd cup of franks

4 knobs of butter

and 2 knobs of Light Philadelphia cheese

splash of white vinegar

heat up bring to boil and then 15 mins under grill

Super i tell thee Super

Thanks, I didn't think of the philadelphia. I bought my first bottle of franks on Saturday, and baked the wings. They were delicious!!

Travel is good wrote: »

Thanks, I didn't think of the philadelphia. I bought my first bottle of franks on Saturday, and baked the wings. They were delicious!!

If you add a bit of corn starch you can make the sauce much thicker and stickier like their ones, rather than runny like water. Have done this in a while, think im gonna have to very soon!

I have a question please!

So i am of the baking persuasion, which is grand, but sometimes when I take out my cooked wings, they are 'watery' for the want of a better word. They are crispy on the outside, and they look perfect. But when i take a bite, they are just watery..

I try to let them rest, like beef for example, so that the juices don't spill all over me, but sometimes they are just too juicy.

Any explanation? I mean, i like juicy moist chicken but not when you take a bite into a wing and it explodes. I want it more meaty!!!

Hi Vibe,

Thanks for the response! I have done this, i dust them with the flour/paprika mix suggested in this thread and I also follow the advice to put them in the fridge for at least 1 hour to overnight.

I think it could be just as simple as leaving them 'rest' a little longer, but i was curious to see if anyone else had a similar problem.

vibe666 wrote: »

or just dump them in a deep fat fryer and be done with it.

i just feel like (with the chicken, sauce, butter & dip) they're not exactly the healthiest thing in the world anyway so a bit of extra fat from frying isn't going to make a huge difference.

I think that people's main reason for not frying them is that they, like me, do not (and probably never will) own a deep fat fryer rather than some misguided notion that oven cooked chicken wings are significantly healthier than fried ones.

I find deep fat fryers too bulky, messy and smelly to warrant having one for the few times I'd use it!

the beer revolu wrote: »

I find deep fat fryers too bulky, messy and smelly to warrant having one for the few times I'd use it!

i actually fry mine in a wok on my electric hob. don't think i'd be brave enough to do it on a gas hob though, so i wouldn't recommend that at all unless you're well insured and don't mind rebuilding your house from the ashes every time you make wings.

i do have a fryer, but i keep that for the few times when i do chips or something like that where the oil doesn't get too dirty.

once i'm done i leave the oil to cool and then use a strainer and funnel to filter it back into a big bottle and it goes in the cupboard until i need to use it again.

as long as you have all the right bits (strainer, big funnel, lid for your wok to keep the smell in etc.) its dead easy and not messy at all.

Pot wrote:

Tried it again but ran out of Philadelphia cheese it was rotten Folks dont do this at home with ordinary cheddar

cheddar???

who's idea was cheddar?

and for the love of jebus WHY would you do that? :eek:

rubadub wrote: »

You can get mini deep friers in powercity, these need far less oil to get up to the "minimum line", and are smaller for sticking in a cupboard etc, pretty cheap too.

you might have missed the bit where i mentioned that i had a deep fryer as well.

Pot wrote:

The sauce to boil not the wings:rolleyes:

er, yeah smartarse I know what you meant. I still don't see any specific reason why you would need to boil the sauce mixture though. Heat yes, boil I don't know.

vibe666 wrote: »

well somebody got out of the wrong side of bed this morning. :rolleyes:

there's a very good reason for boiling the sauce and it improves the flavour greatly imho as there is too strong a vinegar flavour off it otherwise.

it also helps the franks and butter clump together a bit more which makes it stick to the wings better.

Thanks

mmcn90 wrote: »

Was in Elephant & Castle yesterday, dont understand what the big deal is with the chicken wings, I thought they were inedible.

its been a long time since E&C did decent wings imho, so i stopped going there altogether.

they've been going on their reputation alone for quite some time now.

of course, it may just not be to your liking, i don't think they'd be for everyone, but then again tell me something that is.

hmm, might be time for another batch (boneless thighs, not wings ) here at home for T tonight.

mmcn90 wrote: »

true, I think they might be something you either love or hate, but the person I was eating there with agreed with me. It's just my opinion though.

everyone is entitled to have one, we're not a wingtatorship just yet (although we're getting close!).

i had a bit of an epiphany last night and decided that wings weren't the only thing that could benefit from the franks treatment and decided to do some king prawns the same way and they were pretty amazing.

you might be thinking that they'd be way too expensive to just throw into some franks and butter, but if you go into one of the proper chinese supermarkets (i use the one on abbey st. next to the jervis luas stop) you can pick up a 1kg bag of the big uncooked tiger prawns for about 8 quid and they work perfectly.

all i did was defrost them and score them down the spine on the outside to make sure i got the black veiny bit out and so they opened up nicely when cooked, coated them in my (almost patented) flour/cornflour mix and threw them in the fryer for a few minutes and then tossed them in the cooked out franks/butter mix and served (also did boneless thigh strips too) and they were amazing.

you do taste the franks/butter saltiness more off the prawns than you do with the chicken so i think next time it'll be unsalted butter, but it's definitely a winner imho and they will certainly be coming out the next time the franks is out again.