Buffalo Wings

Variations

• BBQ wings: Use barbecue sauce instead of buffalo.
• Honey garlic: Toss in honey, soy, and garlic for sweet-savory.
• Extra crispy: Dredge in flour and cornstarch and deep-fry.
• Milder: Use more butter and a touch of honey, less hot sauce.

Tips

• Dry the skin completely and coat with baking powder for crispness without frying.
• Toss in the sauce right after roasting so they stay crisp and saucy at once.
• Roast hot (220°C) and turn halfway for even cooking.
• Dial the heat with the hot-sauce-to-butter ratio.
• The baking powder is alkali on the skin, which is a different job from what alkali usually does in a recipe. Raising the skin's pH does two things at once: browning runs faster in alkaline conditions, and a higher pH loosens the skin's protein structure so water escapes more readily instead of steaming underneath. Add the carbon dioxide it gives off, which leaves the surface microscopically rough, and you get a crust from a 220°C oven that would otherwise need a fryer (browning). Elsewhere alkali goes into a dough or a boiling bath — the kansui in Lanzhou lamian, the soda in a bagel, the lye in a pretzel — and the food is cooked afterwards. Here it is painted on a surface that is about to be dried out.
• Baking powder, not baking soda, and the difference matters at this quantity. A tablespoon of pure bicarbonate on a kilo of wings tastes soapy and metallic. Baking powder is bicarbonate buffered with acid salts, so it gives the same pH lift on the surface without that aftertaste. If all you have is soda, use about a third as much.
• The sauce is an emulsion, which is why it clings. Frank's is essentially vinegar, cayenne and water; melted butter whisked into it disperses as droplets held by the vinegar's acidity and the butter's own milk solids (emulsions). That is why the ratio dials texture as well as heat — more butter is thicker and milder, more hot sauce is thinner and sharper — and why a sauce that has sat and split should be re-warmed and whisked rather than poured as it is.
• The blue cheese is doing chemistry; the celery is not. Chilli and heat explains that capsaicin dissolves in fat and not in water, so the dairy fat in the dip is the only thing on the plate that actually removes any heat. Celery and carrot are cold and wet, which is pleasant and does nothing. Same family: fried chicken and dak gangjeong.