hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with buffalo chicken wings in a jar
that's right this amazing spread offers all the same things traditional buffalo
chicken wings do accept the bones the messy frying and of course your drunk
friends dripping sauce all over the place and as if that wasn't enough we're
also gonna learn how to make some blue cheese crostini which alone are worth
the price of admission so with that let's go ahead and get started with some
possibly very shocking news no chicken wings will be harmed in the making of
this recipe since we're actually gonna use these large bone-in skin-on thighs
which to a chef is just a larger much easier to work with chicken wing all
right same tase same texture same fat just way way faster and easier to deal
with and what we'll do is take those to the stove and place them skin side down
into a dry sauce pan that we've gotten nice and hot over high heat okay we
really do want to hear a sizzle when we place those in otherwise it wasn't hot
enough and what we'll do is let those see her just like that for about five or
six minutes and the reason we didn't need any fat in the pan is because that
skin has a lot of fat which is gonna render out and allow these to brown up
quite nicely and even though we are gonna season our spread at the end of
production we will still at this point sprinkle over a generous amount of salt
on that meat side at which point we'll go ahead and flip those over and proceed
to add what is basically your classic buffalo chicken wing sauce which
includes half a stick of unsalted butter although the original original recipe
was actually made with margarine but as you know we don't use that around here
and then to that we will add our favorite brand of Louisiana Hot Sauce
all right Franks would be the most popular choice but I'm a crystal guy and
then besides that we will also add a little splash of water and then once all
that's in there all we're gonna do is wait for that butter to melt while we
give everything a toss in the sauce which in the business we refer to as a
sauce toss and then what's gonna happen once that butter eventually melts and
our chicken thighs have been thoughtfully tossed and coated as we
will turn our heat down to low cover this and let it cook for about an hour
and a half or until very very very tender and of course during that time if
you want to give these a toss or two go
ahead and what we're eventually looking for like I said about an hour and a half
or so later would be some extremely tender meat that's basically gonna fall
right off the bone if we move it around with the tongs which is what I've
achieved here and then what we'll do once it's nice and tender like this
let's go ahead and break it into nice small pieces with our tongs and the
reason for this is because what's gonna happen next is we're gonna let this cool
down to room temp and by breaking this stuff up into some nice small pieces I
think it's gonna better absorb all those amazing flavors from our sauce so we'll
go ahead and break that apart as shown at which point like I said we're gonna
let this cool down to room temp or at least cool enough to handle so that's
what I did and then what we'll do once this is ready to handle its transfer
everything into a mixing bowl except three things okay - for sure
but probably three okay first of course we're gonna pull out any bones and then
there's also gonna be a few small pieces of cartilage from the joint which are
going to be pretty easy to see and feel and we will have to remove those also
and then the third thing you could remove would be the skin which I do if
there's any large pieces but there might be some little small pieces to get
through that's fine and one of these days I'm going to take that skin chopped
it up and maybe fry it and add it back in but this is just a quick getting
ready for a big party version so we'll go ahead and pick that chicken and then
once it's in the bowl it's not a bad idea to go through it one more time
maybe breaking up some of those bigger pieces and also because this one last
chance to make sure we didn't miss anything inedible okay we're trying to
make our guests happy not their lawyers and then once we're done with that we're
gonna have a bowl of 100% edible meat the rest of our sauce and of course our
discarded bones cartilage and/or skin and then what we'll do next is take that
sauce back to the stove where we'll place it on medium-high heat just to
reduce it down and concentrate those flavors a little bit all right we
probably could have just added that back to the chicken as is but as some of you
know I get paid by this step and this is only gonna take like three or four
minutes to do so we'll simply boil that for a few minutes to evaporate some of
that water up out of there and if everything goes according to plan once
you're done it should look something like this at which point we'll carefully
go ahead and add that back to our chicken and then we'll take a spoon and
give that a thorough mixing at which point we're gonna want to give
it a taste and then make a few decisions okay it's probably gonna need more salt
and depending on how spicy you wanna maybe some Cayenne as well as quite
possibly another splash or two of Louisiana Hot Sauce and as you can see I
ended up putting in all three and then I gave it a mix and of course another
taste and once that season exactly how we want
we will add the last ingredient some finely diced celery which because of its
subtle bitterness really does help bring out all the other flavors but it's also
gonna add a nice little textural contrast
not to mention celery sticks are always served alongside buffalo chicken wings
and then what we'll do once all that's mixed up is go ahead and transfer it
into whatever jar we're gonna serve this out of all right any old mason jar will
do so don't let the fact I'm using some fancy French one throw you off which
reminds me if we were doing this in France we would be calling this a
buffalo chicken react in Man would people be confused but anyway we'll go
ahead and fill and pack our gyro crock and once all that's nicely pressed down
I decided to garnish the top with a little bit of hot sauce just for a
little extra visual appeal and to sort of warm people they might be getting
into something a little bit spicy and that's it once packed and sauced we'll
go ahead and seal that up and pop it in the fridge until ready to serve it
and yes you can absolutely and probably should do this today ahead and then once
that set we need to prep our blue cheese crostini since just like the celery blue
cheese is a traditional garnish for the chicken wings and that's gonna start by
us cutting and panning up some sliced baguette about a quarter-inch thick is
ideal and what we'll do first is generously brush these with butter and
just on one side is fine at which point we will transfer those into the center
of a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes or so or until they just start
to turn golden brown and then while those are in the oven we're gonna take
some room temperature bleu cheese all right something nice nothing you pre
crumbled and we're gonna mix in roughly an equal part of room temperature
unsalted butter and we'll go ahead and give that a thorough mixing with our
knife at which point we can set that aside and we'll go ahead and pull out
our now golden-brown crostini and then to finish these all
we have to do is let these cool down enough to handle at which point we're
gonna spread each one with our blue cheese butter and how much is gonna be
up to you but I'm probably doing about a half to a teaspoon on each there for
whatever reason if you're not into whipping up a batch of these you could
as an alternative add some blue cheese to the spread and then just serve that
on plain crostini or bread or crackers okay so that's up to you
I mean you are for all the Jim Kelly of how it gets into your belly but having
said that these really are incredible and you should probably make some even
if you're not doing the buffalo chicken spread and that's it once he's have all
been blue cheese we will simply pop those back in the oven for about 10 to
12 minutes or until that blue cheese butter bakes in and these are as golden
brown and crispy as we want and that's a once your crostini are cooled we can
move into final service so I line those up on a serving platter and place my
buffalo chicken wings in a jar nearby and then decide to garnish with a nice
sprig of celery leaves you know in case anyone at the party wants to Instagram
this which is why I also got rid of that unsightly orange rubber ring and that's
it our buffalo chicken wings in a jar are ready to enjoy and what I love so
much about this re-envision buffalo chicken wing experience is that we get
all the flavor elements all right the chicken the hot sauce the butter the
blue cheese the celery we get all that in a 100% boneless 100% edible fully
spreadable form and by the way unlike chicken wings that are only crispy for a
couple minutes because we're enjoying this on the blue cheese crostini every
bite is crispy and if you're thinking sure but this is not hot well you know
what neither are those chicken wings at the party well so you've been sitting on
the platter for more than a couple minutes which reminds me not a bad idea
to pull this stuff out of the fridge about a half hour before you're going to
serve it so it isn't ice cold but anyway that's it what I'm calling buffalo
chicken wings in a jar everything you love about the classic hot wing in a
much much more user friendly form all right like I said earlier you don't have
to worry about your friends dripping buffalo chicken wing sauce all over
everything which will free them up to drip other things like nacho cheese
sauce so if you are a fan of the buffalo chicken wing and want to enjoy it in his
most luxurious form I really do hope you give
- try soon so please follow the links below for all the ingredient amounts a
principle written recipe in much more info as usual and as always enjoy
you