- Free wings for life, huh?
- You wouldn't be able to handle those.
They're for real men.
- We're men!
- No women here.
- I haven't seen a woman all day.
- Nobody's ever survived the Inferno Challenge!
Our wing sauce is made from mutated ghost peppers,
hot magma stripped and black widow venom.
- I'll do it.
- Hey, what's up guys, welcome back to Binging with Babish.
For this week, we're taking a look
at the Inferno Wing Challenge from Regular Show.
Now, unfortunately it's July and ghost peppers
just aren't in season yet so I wasn't able to get any fresh,
but with the help of some Fresno peppers
for flavor and a whole bunch of habanero peppers for heat,
I think we can make a sauce
in the 100 to 300,000 Scoville unit range.
So before we negotiate these peppers,
we need to apply prophylactics to our hands,
eyes and countertop.
Once all the important stuff has been safeguarded,
it's time to start chopping up peppers.
Simply remove the stem and then cut the rest of the pepper
into one inch segments.
You want to end up with about a pound of peppers total,
I'm using mostly habaneros for their heat.
If you want a milder, more flavorful sauce
reminiscent of Franks or Tabasco,
just use Fresno peppers.
Into a blender they go along with four cloves of garlic
and maybe a cup of white vinegar.
It's gonna seem like not enough,
but these peppers liquefy pretty easily.
And so on low speed at first,
we're gonna start blending these guys
until they can blend no more.
And we need to employ the help
of a big old blender stuffer thing.
Then we're gonna blend on high speed
for at least one minute
until the mixture is completely smooth
at which point we're going to evacuate
into a nonreactive container.
Cover loosely with plastic wrap
and allow to sit out at room temperature for three days
in order to ferment.
You should see little bubbles rising to the surface
indicating that the sauce is fermenting,
which is going to deepen its flavor and complexity.
Next up, we are straining it
through not too fine a mesh strainer.
We want some of those pepper solids to make it through
so it thickens the sauce,
but we're gonna catch all the big stuff like this.
Then to both thicken the sauce
and mellow out some of the harsher raw pepper flavors,
I like to cook the sauce a little bit,
maybe 10 to 15 minutes at a bare simmer
before finally tasting for seasoning
and hoo boy, this stuff is hot.
A little salt to taste
and a pinch of sugar will help round out the flavors
a little bit and I'm also going to add some MSG
because MSG tastes good.
And so now it's time to start dealing
with our chicken wings.
After rinsing and thoroughly patting dry,
we are placing them into some vegetable oil,
which we have heated to about 225 degrees Fahrenheit,
which might seem like an awfully low temperature
and that's because it is.
We're gonna slowly carefully cook these at 225
for about 20 minutes,
effectively making chicken wing confit
in this method developed by J. Kenji Lopez Alt.
After 20 minutes,
our wings are going to emerge pretty pale and flabby
and not appetizing to the human eye,
but don't worry because we're just getting started.
These guys are gonna hang out on a cooling rack
for at least one hour at room temperature
or overnight in the fridge.
At this point,
we're gonna let our oil cool and filter it
into our even bigger Dutch oven where we're gonna heat it
to a screaming hot 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Add the cooled chicken wings and fry for 10 minutes.
During the first two minutes
of which they are gonna be very sticky
so to try to pull them apart if they stick together.
And at this point, you might be saying,
this is an awful lot of work for chicken wings,
but this yields the crispiest, juiciest,
most tender and flavorful wings I have ever eaten.
Even after saucing, they stay crispy forever.
We're frying in small batches so as to prevent sticking.
So once each batch is done,
place the wings on a cooling rack,
setting the rim baking sheet and keep in a low oven.
Now I know that blue cheese dressing
is not allowed in this challenge,
but I have guests coming over
and I want to be more hospitable
than those Backwoods weirdos.
So into a medium bowl goes about a cup of mayonnaise,
about three quarters of a cup of sour cream,
a little sprinkle of garlic powder,
about a tablespoon of white wine vinegar,
a healthy sprinkle of kosher salt,
and a few twists of freshly ground black pepper.
I also like to add about half a teaspoon of white sugar.
Oh, that's too much.
And a little squeeze of lemon juice and that's it.
Perfect blue cheese, oh yeah, we need to add blue cheese.
Maybe about four crumbled ounces of the blue stuff.
You might want to buy the pre-crumbled kind
because this gets a little bit messy.
Mix together and you have the only possible accompaniment
for Buffalo wings.
Ranch, you can go [beep] yourself.
Oh, sorry, my heritage just reared its ugly head.
We're gonna keep this covered
and refrigerated until ready to use
so the flavors can meld and now it's onto sauce.
Our inferno sauce is looking about the right consistency
and compared to some Frank's Red Hot on the right,
it's looking pretty orange and mean,
but now for the all-important taste test.
The Frank's Red Hot tastes like Frank's Red Hot
and the inferno sauce tastes like well,
it's hot of flavor because that's mostly what it is.
But outside of that, it's nicely fermented
and it's got a slightly more floral flavor
thanks to all the habaneros.
Toss the wings in the sauce
as immediately as possible after frying
to ensure sauce adhesion.
Toss really high up in the air
so each wing gets a little bit of hang time
cause it's fun for them and plate up
like a big old pile of chicken wings.
And since I was unable to make a show accurate
mutated ghost pepper sauce,
I think the least that I can do is set these wings a flame.
So into a sauce pan goes the wings
along with a good glug of sauce,
which we're gonna get nice and hot and bubbly.
Then we're gonna kill the heat
and add some stuff that we can set on fire.
I went with bourbon
because I thought bourbon chicken wings sounded good,
but in retrospect I would go with something a little milder
or something that would compliment the flavors
like tequila or vodka.
So now here to join me is my buddy Sean Evans,
with whom I'm going to play a game
of which one is the hot one.
Sean, which one is the hot one.
- I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that's the hot one.
- God damn it, you're good.
So anyway, before we eat,
I'm gonna let all this alcohol burn off,
plate these guys up and extend a courtesy to you
that you do not extend to guests on your show
in the form of carrots and celery and blue cheese.
- Red carpet treatment, I feel welcome.
- And while the bourbon wings did not turn out super good,
the straight-up sauce was actually really tasty,
what do you think, Sean?
- Delicious and the wings are warm.
- Do you not have warm wings on your show?
- Yeah, we totally do.
- All right lastly,
do you think that these qualify as Inferno Wings?
- These are not Inferno Wings.
You want Inferno Wings,
then that means you got to come on my show.
- Your show? - My show.
- Right now? - Right now.
- Let's go. - Let's go.
That stuff is vile.
- [Sean] Bringing back memories?
- Yeah of college of trying to impress my friends.
Whoa, did I just hiccup?
I haven't hiccuped in like seven years.
I'm hiccuping, I swear I haven't hiccuped in like seven...
This is magical for me, are you crying?
- Listen, I'm not immune to it.
I'm just sitting here battling through.
- That is so exciting.
(chill music)