Elephant & Castle chicken wings? Read first post!

Possum66

I use to like E & C, went there for the wings, but not anymore. Usually very noisy, the music is awful, the chicken wing portions are smaller, so as long as I can enjoy this culinary delight in the comfort of my own home (and cheaper, too) I don't go back.

Their ice cream still good, though.

Will stock up on Franks Sauce soon. Have to impress some guests :-))

vibe666

Confab wrote: »

Another vote against the E&C wings - disgusting, taste like Windowlene!

what do you mean by 'another vote against'?

i think you're on your own there mate, this is a wing lovers thread.

if you wasnt 'crispy' wings, there's just no substitute for washed and patted dry wings, a coating of cornflour, 30 mins in the fridge and a deep fat fryer.

And the thigh meat is so much better than wings it's not even funny. jusdt de-bone the thighs and slice into three strips and then carry on as if they were wings. so much more meat (for the same price as a tray of wings) and so much more juicy and flavoursome with it.

god, now I'm starving!

digitalninja

please explain thigh meat recipe in more detail.
I am hungry.

Also - what's this roadhouse you're speaking of?

vibe666

i posted it a couple of pages back in the thread.

basically, whever you'll find wings in the supermarket, they normally have thighs too. they have the bone in tho which is a bit of a bummer as i don't think they'd cook through before burning on the outside if you deep fry them.

so what i do is takeout the bone and with it laying flat, skin side donw, i cut it into 3 wing sized strips and then do the cornflour & frying thing before saucing them up.

most supermarkets charge the same price for the thighs as wtih the wings, but imho you get a lot more meat on them and it only takes a little longer to de-bone them than it does to seperate wings.

someone elesementioned roadhouse, i've no idea what it is unless they're talking about the patrick swayse movie.

digitalninja

I will try this method, sounds meaty!

vibe666

tis meaty indeed!

digitalninja

Went to Tribeca for the first time yesterday.
While they use the same sauce as E&C their preperation of the wings is crap - the wings skin were full off that stringy stuff hanging off them and It looks like whoever cut them didn't realise you need to cut them at the joint. Sharp bits of bone all through them.
My home made lemonade was warm too:*(

E&C or gourmet burger is much better in my opinion.

vibe666

good to know, hope you went all ninja on them for making a hames of it, that's totally unforgivable!

having said that, the one thing that gets on my tits more than badly cut wings is when people are too fecking lazy to cut them at all and even leave the tips on (you know who you are!!!), that just puts me off totally.

I did actually find a bottle of franks original hot sauce at tesco in navan on sunday, but it was along amongst about 20 of the buffallo wing sauce bottles so not sure if they got it in on purpose or by accident. i soon took care of it anyway. gonna do some crispy boneless thighs at some point this week with it, but i've a heap of leftover pasta and stuff to ge through first.

broin

vibe666 wrote: »

having said that, the one thing that gets on my tits more than badly cut wings is when people are too fecking lazy to cut them at all and even leave the tips on (you know who you are!!!), that just puts me off totally.

... why would you cut the tips off? You mean the actual 'fingertip' of the wing?

digitalninja

broin wrote: »

... why would you cut the tips off? You mean the actual 'fingertip' of the wing?

The winges come in 3 joints:

meaty wing drumstick - good!
meaty wing with two bones you have to eat out - (sorry) good!
tip - bull****!

Possum66

I would not say it is bull****! I don't use the back of the chicken, or the tips. But collect them, freeze them, and sometimes when the I feel like it, cook a delicious chicken soup with loads of vegetables (especially carrots). Throw away the tips, they are useless at this stage, pick the meat off the back, ladle your soup in a deep bowl and enjoy - a nice meal.

vibe666

Possum66 wrote: »

I would not say it is bull****! I don't use the back of the chicken, or the tips. But collect them, freeze them, and sometimes when the I feel like it, cook a delicious chicken soup with loads of vegetables (especially carrots). Throw away the tips, they are useless at this stage, pick the meat off the back, ladle your soup in a deep bowl and enjoy - a nice meal.

that there's crayzie talk!!!

anyways, i'm not talking about at home. i meant when you go out to a pub or restaurant and order wings and they dump some half ar$ed effort on your table with the two (good) wing halves still joined at the elbow and the stupid useless (yes, apart from soup!) flappy end bit still attached.

now THAT is unforgivable. :eek:

Possum66

Oops, sorry - in this case, yes, I agree, then it is absolutely unforgivable.

Attol

What would you have as a side dish with these? Gonna cook some for me and the boyfriend next week but want to make it into a meal. Was thinking buttery mash and corn on the cob...

coffee to go

Get yourself some oven shoestring fries (McCain etc) and sprinkle a rake of garlic salt on them for the complete E&C experience. Corn cobs work too!

PS - To all: Probably sometime in the next week I am going to be trial an advancement on the recipe we already have on this thread. Won't say exactly what I'm doing in case it's an absolute disaster, but will report back results in due course!

Possum66

As it is a very spicy dish I always serve it with a simple mixed salad (to cool the spiciness down a bit): little gem, cherry tomatoes, cucumber (cubed) and bell peppers, maybe spring onions - drizzle on some olive oil, then coarsely ground black pepper and salt, nothing else. Play with the colours :-) Corn on the cob is great idea! Will try it next time.

vibe666

i'm always a fan of MORE MEAT!

just did boneless thigh strips again tonight but this time with the franks original hot sauce i picked up in tesco (not the franks wing sauce you usually get) and i was all ready to say i couldn't taste the difference till i actually had it, and it's just sooo much better i couldn't in good concience come on here and say it wasn't.

i had to play around with the quanities to get it right, but even with heaps of real butter you don't end up with the same artificial buttery smell off you as you do after the wings sauce. not to mention it goes a heck of a lot further cos you only need a tiny bit of it compared to the wing sauce.

Sooo much better, I hope I can get it again when I need it. wouldn't like to go back to the wings sauce if i can avoid it. i used to think that was great, but the original hot sauce + real butter is definitely the way forward from now on.

digitalninja

You don't win friends with salad.
I personally don't use blue cheese dip I much prefer celery+garlic dip.

Way better.

Also - The wing sauce is full of additives and chemicals, I'd avoid it and use real butter - the restaurants do...

Possum66

digitalninja wrote: »

You don't win friends with salad.quote]

I do... :P Chicken wings _and_ salad, hot and spicy with cool and crunchy... yumm.

vibe666

digitalninja wrote: »

Also - The wing sauce is full of additives and chemicals, I'd avoid it and use real butter - the restaurants do...

ditto. won't be going back to the wings sauce, "franks original hot sauce" + real butter all the way for me from now on!

Blisterman

Agreed, plus a bottle goes a lot further, if you add butter.
A big advantage for those of us, who have to bring it back in their suitcase, every time they go to Ireland.

1looney

hi... dunno if you found the answer to your initial question about the chicken wings and i didn't wanna trawl through all of the answers to find out so here goes...

http://www.todayfm.com/Article.asp?id=782795 check out this link to the recipe for E&C chicken wings,

also La Bucca (Ashbourne and Ratoath) do the same ones (same recipe due to a chef who brought the recipe i think, but don't quote me!)

Betcha didn't think a vegetarian could know so much about chicken wings!!

vibe666

that's not the receipe 1looney, as we've already discussed in that 'earlier in the thread' bit you were talking about.

you didn't even have to go very far, the 'secret ingredient' is mentioned only 2 posts up from yours.

georgeous

Is it sad that I've registered just to talk about wings? Thought not.

I've spent the last 2 nights making wings using Ballymans recipe and deep frying, and tonight I tried steaming and then baking... and oh sweet jaysus, I don't think I've ever felt so happy in my life.

The better method? In my opinion, the steaming and baking tasted a lot better and crispier - I steamed the wings for about 12 minutes, then put them on a baking tray to let them cool for about 15 minutes, and allow excess grease etc to drip off - then covered them in kitchen foil and put them in the fridge for an hour - I then took the foil off and returned to fridge (uncovered... what food poisioning?) for another 20-30 minutes to let them dry out and help the crisping - then into an oven preheated to 230ish degrees for 30-40 minutes, turning once - while they're in the oven I sorted out the sauce. After the wings were finished baking I let them cool for a few minutes, then threw them into a largish bowl, poured the sauce over them, put a plate on top of the bowl to cover and gave it a little shaky-poo. Oh... my... dog. I am actually thinking of going back to the supermarket and getting some more wings right now.

When I deep fried they weren't great, but that might be because I did it in a pot with brand new oil and so the starch content of the oil wasn't high meaning they didn't get very crispy, and also I don't think I put enough butter in the sauce.

Ballyman, you are a legned. You're on my christmas card list.

vibe666

welcome to the club georgeous.

oh, and yes it's sad, but it doesn't matter as we're all VERY sad here in many many different ways.

Ballyman

georgeous wrote: »

Ballyman, you are a legned. You're on my christmas card list.

Thanks

Gruzer

Anybody made tacos with Frank's red hot? They are really good, just brown mince for a few minutes and then add a jar of chunky hot salsa, a few glugs of Frank's and a pinch of chilli powder and simmer for a few minutes. I serve in taco shells with lettuce, tomato, cheese and sour cream. Delish and really quick and easy to make.

foodaholic

ooh im sure u could make taco fries with that yum yum

newbie2

Made these today using Ballymans' recipe. Got to say - bang on mate. Well played. I used a teaspoon on cayenne pepper, teaspoon of paprika, salt pepper and a bout a handful of flour to dress the wing before putting the into the fridge. left them there for about 40 minutes before deep frying them.
I used 55 gramms (2 oz) of stork margerine and about half a bottle of Franks for about 18 wings.(just under a kg). Works like a treat.

Again well done ballyman.

vibe666

newbie2 wrote: »

I used 55 gramms (2 oz) of stork margerine

why in the name of all that is holy would you dso something like that?

please tell me that you are fatally allergic to butter or that you live in a country where butter is forbidden by law under punishment of death?