Elephant & Castle chicken wings? Read first post!

Hope you don't mind me resurrecting this thread!

So I have never tried E&C wings (:eek:) i know, but I absolutely LOVE eddie rockets wings.

Are they the same? I have a feeling that the Franks Hot sauce may be a bit hot for me, as I prefer that moreish bbq flavour.

If there is a difference what is it, and how do I recreate Eddie Rockets wings?

i find melting the butter with the franks (original, not the wing sauce, its manky by comparison) on a high heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, has the same effect of clumping it together a tiny bit to help it stick to the wings.

for anyone afraid (or unwilling) to fry their wings, there's a very interesting article on the various methods of baking wings to get the optimal results HERE.

oddly enough, resting in the fridge overnight coating in baking powder appears to do the job as far as crispiness and browning are concerned, so if you're the sort who likes to bake rather than fry, it might be worth giving it a go.

vibe666 wrote: »

for anyone afraid (or unwilling) to fry their wings, there's a very interesting article on the various methods of baking wings to get the optimal results HERE.

Great article! I'm tried the baking thing the other night, two reasons - I don't have a deep fat fryer & less fat. They were still pretty good tbh! Will have a good look at this article. God, I'm drooling already!

ven0m wrote: »

p.s. I used to work for ER - anything you need to know, ask.

Does it get annoying listening to the same 1950s songs over and over again?

Big Blue restaurant/burger bar in Howth do great wings, pretty close to the recipe if not the same as elephant and castle

mine have evolved way past just wings now, i've been editing it and adding to my method since day one and I'm not at a stage where I'm just buying a whole chicken and chopping it up into managable pieces, marinating it for 48 hours in buttermilk (24 hours won't do the job, needs the full 48 hours, but seriously, any chicken you can do this with will blow you away, it's the only way to go) coating in 3/4 plain flour & 1/4 cornflour mix with a teaspoon of smoked paprika and pepper, then deep fried and tossed in franks original cooked out with a knob of butter. I don't see me ever just cooking wings ever again.

i used to love E&C wings and 4 years ago i would have given them 10/10 every time, but since i started experimenting with my own franks sauce, they've slipped way down and i'd be pushed to give them a 5/10 now in comparison to the above. not (just) blowing my own trumpet, the missus would murder ye for it too.

Mr.Boots wrote: »

At the end of the day its just a bottle of sauce with some butter...not realy rocket science.

Agreed, have a read of the link below, it is FAR more complicated than rocket science!

vibe666 wrote: »

there's a very interesting article on the various methods of baking wings to get the optimal results HERE.

sorry but porterhouse ones are mank:eek:

Mr.Boots wrote: »

I would sugest to forget the bottle of Franks Sauce and start experimenting with fresh ingredients instead....you will find something far superior...and it will be yours.

have you actually tried properly cooked wings with Franks sauce on them?

as it happens, I do actually make the vast majority of what I cook from fresh ingredients and I do have my own recipe for a sticky bbq sauce that goes very well on both wings and ribs and both prove very popular, but I'm not fool enough to put them up against franks and if we have people over I tend to just keep my own sauce for the ribs and let the Franks do the talking on the wings although I do sometimes leave a few wings for the bbq sauce just in case there's someone there who isn't a fan, but I do know when I'm onto a losing battle.

there IS a very good reason why Franks been the secret ingredient in the original Buffalo wings for the last 45 years and it's also the reason this very thread has gotten over 4 times as many posts than ANY OTHER (non-stickied) thread in the F&D forum here.

granted, there has been the odd poster here and there that doesn't like them, but by and large, for most people you really can't get better than buffalo wings made (and made correctly) with Franks Ret Hot Cayenne Pepper Sauce.

done right, you really can't beat the flavour, but equally, if they are done wrong (and I've had it done wrong more than once) it can be almost inedible so make sure you have them done right if you're going to have them.

rubadub wrote: »

I got a twin pack of ready cooked O'Kane chickens, its €7 for the 2 of them, 1.5kg in total, that sounds like a very small chickens and they are small but if you cook a 1.8kg chicken I expect it reduces down to ~1.5kg. I have one in the oven now cut up to heat & crisp quicker and will try the franks on it. I don't like cleaning up all the fat after normal chicken.

nice one, i do the same now. read back about my trick of marinating the chicken for 48 hours in buttermilk before cooking. it's a killer having to wait so long for it before you can cook it, but if you try it and it wasn't worth the wait, i'll buy you a new chicken.

you really need to do the buttermilk soak for 48 hours though, i've tried it for 24 and although it's better than no soakage at all, you really do need the full 48 for it to work properly.

also, another thing i do to use up the leftover buttermilk (and my flour/cornflour coating for frying) is to mix up a batch of batter and make fresh onion rings out of it, they're much better than anything you'd find in any chipper. not sure if you could oven cook those though, they're probably just a fryer option but well worth doing if you ever get a chance.

rubadub wrote: »

But I have no frier -this sounds odd to many but I make onion pancakes, if you think about it they are really just flat onion rings in batter, sort of like onion bhajis if you add curry powder in too.

sounds good to me, whatever works!

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