Good morning folks!

We did it! We fucking did it! The NFL season is finally here and we made it through the interminable, arduous, ungodly offseason.

Hot damn!

While of course this means we’ve got hot, sexy NFL action every weekend for the next 5 months or so it also means I can drag my ass out of the kitchen, grab some beers and fuck off with the rest of yez!

That’s right, it’s the season finale of Sunday Gravy!

For those of you new folks, Sunday Gravy along with Request Line and DFO Radio are offseason features that run during the, well, the fucking offseason. These features will be placed on hiatus until after the Superb Owl when they will return to their regularly scheduled time. Try not to shed a tear but I need a fucking break over here.

It’s been one hell of a season this year, my 3rd doing Sunday Gravy. We started off around Christmas time with prime rib and Yorkshire pudding, plowed through Jersey with porkroll egg and cheese, we made chowdah and lentil soup, chicken chili, meatballs, shrimp and grits, homemade pizza with homemade Italian sausage, homemade fettucine alfredo, Irish stew, beef stroganoff, scratch-made chicken parm, (takes deep breath) chicken shawarma, braised ribs and gratin potatoes, kung pao chicken with beef and broccoli, grillades and grits, hotdish, egg salad, scratch made ravioli with 2 sauces, a motherfucking bahn mi!, jagerschnitzel and spaetzle, scratch made burgers with our own ground beef and homemade buns, we studied the burrito in various incarnations and did a Mexican street corn, we had chicken pot pie, orange chicken and fried rice, chicken marsala and grilled pesto pork chops. And that’s just THIS SEASON!

Mother. Fucker.

I ain’t gonna link to all of those recipes but you can find my archives here.

See? I need a rest.

The things I’m most proud of from our offseason together are definitely my fresh pasta (I’m a goddamn pasta making machine) my homemade bread is spot on and competition ready and I’ve really been able to integrate the Americanized/Chinese food profiles to a high degree.

I would have never done these things or probably even tried them without writing Sunday Gravy.

So, thank you. Both for reading and for being the inspiration for me to cook new things.

As payment for you wonderful folks who read these on a regular basis I’m giving a perfect present to take with you during this upcoming NFL Season. I’m giving you WINGS! Four ways!

Who doesn’t love wings? Un-American heathen bastards that’s who! Like them bone-in or boneless? Doesn’t matter we’re doing both. Fried or baked? Doesn’t matter we’re doing both. Traditional Buffalo style? Right here! Spicy Asian style wings? Oh yeah. Teriyaki wings? Fuck yes we are. Garlic parmesan wings. Goddamn right!

No single food item says football like the humble chicken wing. According to the National Chicken Council (?) Americans consumed 1.33 BILLION wings for the Superb Owl last year. Enough wings that laid end to end would circle the Earth 3 fucking times!

Jesus Christ that’s a lot of goddamn wings. How we have avoided a complete chicken genocide I have no fucking clue.

What say we add to the wholesale chicken slaughter yes?

Let’s!

Got a lot of shit to cover today so let’s take it from the top.

Blue Cheese dipping glop!

You are gonna love this shit. I think it may have been the highlight of the entire meal.

Gorgonzola cheese – how much depends on how many wings you’re making I used about 4 ounces.

Mayo – equal amount to the gorgonzola.

1 clove of garlic minced.

Juice from 1/2 lime

Salt and pepper to taste.

If you haven’t worked with gorgonzola before it’s got a funky rind to it. It’s chewy and not exactly pleasant to eat so I trimmed the rind away from the cheese. Add in the mayo and mix until smooth. If you want to put a tablespoon of sour cream in here that would work too. Next add in the minced garlic and the squeeze of lime. Finally salt and pepper to taste. I had some of this leftover after the wing extravaganza and it was so goddamn delicious I was just spreading it on a cracker.

If you are more familiar with a Danish Blue that would work too but I really like the depth of the gorgonzola for this application.

Let’s talk about the wings for a moment.

I just fucking love a good fried chicken wing. I mean like “fried chicken” fried chicken wings. Delightful. Then again we can’t eat fried foods on a regular basis. Trust me you youngsters, you just can’t. Your doctor will tell you why eventually. You can make a fantastic chicken wing by baking them too. I’m not talking about soggy ass wings either. I’m talking crispy, crunchy baked wings. It can be done!

Wings!

I prep my wings the same way for frying as I do for baking. This technique works for either.

Bone-in wings – I’ll get to boneless in a bit – however many you feel like devouring.

1/2 cup of flour

1 teaspoon salt.

1 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon of cayenne.

Mix everything together.

Take the wings out of the packaging and using paper towels squeeze/dry them as much as you can. Removing the moisture makes for a crispier wing. Dredge the wings in the seasoned flour until they’re evenly coated and place on a foil-lined baking sheet.

Here’s the trick, especially if you’re baking the wings, put the floured wings into the refrigerator for at least an hour, preferably two or even overnight. This allows the seasoned flour to firmly coat the wings prior to cooking.

If you’re baking these pre-heat the oven to 425. Cook for 25 minutes then flip each wing over, rotate the pan and cook for 20 minutes more. That’s 45 minutes of cooking time. When done, toss with sauce of choice.

If you’e frying these, get a deep pot or Dutch oven on a medium-high heat and add enough oil to almost but not quite cover the wings.

Cook for 5 minutes, flip the wings over, cook for 5 more minutes, flip again and then 5 more minutes or until the wings are golden brown, delicious and cooked through.

Hell yes you could eat the fuck out of these wings like they’re fried chicken – because they are fried chicken wings. We’re just going to toss them in our sauce selection today.

Boneless wings!

2-3 pounds of boneless/skinless chicken breasts cut into nuggets.

1/4 to 1/2 cup of cornstarch

Salt and pepper to taste.

I’m preparing the boneless nuggets differently since they are less fatty and we want to season them more directly. I also am using cornstarch instead of flour so we don’t have too much breading to nugget ratio. This is another technique I learned when preparing the Chinese style chicken recipes mentioned before. Cornstarch makes a badass dredge and lets more of the chicken flavor come through.

I’m only going to be frying the boneless wings not baking.

Season the chicken nuggets with salt and pepper prior to dredging in the cornstarch. Get them nice and coated.

Get some oil going in a pan and let’s get to cooking these up.

Four minutes then flip the chicken over. Four more minutes and they’re done. If working in batches you can keep these warm in a 225 degree oven until everything has been cooked.

Now you may be asking, “Were you really cooking all of these at the same time?”

Fuck yes I was! Bone-in wings are on the left, boneless on the right. I wasn’t able to do the “Keep nuggets warm in the 225 degree oven” thing because I was also baking wings but they held up just fine.

You can eat all of this lovely chicken in any form you want. Dip the nuggets in barbecue sauce? Damn strait! Whatever you want. I’m going to show you a few sauce ideas for these.

Traditional Buffalo wing sauce:

You know this one already. It’s equal parts melted butter – some use margarine but I’m not one of those – and equal parts Frank’s original hot sauce. That’s it. I did fuck around with my sauce by adding a bigass scoop of my chili tepin to the butter and Frank’s mix just to level up the heat. I’ve also put a couple of shots of sriracha in there with outstanding results. Do as you will.

The Teriyaki sauce is my brother DJ Taj’s recipe. He’s made it for over 30 years. It’s a witches brew of soy sauce, pineapple juice, dried cherries, garlic and ginger. He cooks and reduces it by half and then stores the sauce in the fridge. It has a shelf life of for-fucking-ever and he had some in the refrigerator for today’s application. Wish I could be a bit more specific but that’s the best I could do.

Garlic Parmesan Sauce:

1/4 cup of melted butter

1 clove of minced garlic

2 tablespoons of freshly grated parmesan. In this case since it’s a sauce and if you want to use the dried parmesan that you have on hand from previous pizza deliveries you can. JUST THIS ONCE! Of course I used freshly grated.

In a small sauce pan melt the butter over a low heat then add in the garlic. Saute on low for about 5 minutes or until the garlic smell is driving you to the brink of insanity. Then add in half of the parmesan and mix together. The other half of the parmesan is sprinkled over the top of the wings after they have been tossed to coat in the sauce. Garnish with parsley and serve.

Spicy Asian Wing Sauce!

This one is a yeah right original. Basically I still had a lot of Asian sauce elements on hand and I decided to make a sauce out of them. I’ll try to remember what ever the fuck I put in there.

2 tablespoons of soy sauce.

1/4 cup of honey.

Juice from one lime.

1 tablespoon of fresh grated ginger.

2 cloves of minced garlic

1 teaspoon of sesame oil

1 teaspoon of rice wine vinegar or sake

2 tablespoons of hoisen

1 tablespoon of fish sauce

1/2 teaspoon of oregano.

Some grinds of Szechuan pepper.

1 heaping tablespoon of chili garlic sauce.

Put all ingredients in a bowl and stir to mix. This can be made a day in advance to allow the flavors to get mingled.

Not familiar with garlic chili sauce?

Here you go.

It’s very similar to sambal oelek. The picture may look familiar because the garlic chili sauce I used is made by Huey Fong foods. Yep, the same fuckers that make sriracha. I love this stuff. So good. Great to dip an egg roll into.

To make the Asian style wings get a bowl, toss your cooked wings or nuggets in the sauce to coat and garnish with either parsley, chopped green onion or even toasted sesame seeds. Serve.

Let’s take a look at the finished items. First, again, the bone-in wings.

Clockwise from top that’s the traditional Buffalo style, the teriyaki wings, the garlic parmesan wings followed by the spicy Asian wings.

Now here are the boneless wing nuggets.

And that is clockwise from the top the teriyaki nuggets, then the garlic parmesan, the traditional buffalo and the Asian nuggets in the center.

And here is exactly what was left.

Take these recipes and run with them. Tinker around, add more heat, add your own tricks and gimmicks. I don’t even have to give a flavor breakdown of these because everybody knows that wings are goddamn delicious.

So there we have it. Another season in the books. Thanks for reading folks. I really do this out of love for the readers and our fair site here. As much as I love to cook – and I do love to cook – I also have a love for football. If I happen to get inspired during the Vikings bye week I may drop a random recipe in here. Otherwise I will see you folks after the season.

May your team stay healthy, may you dominate in your fantasy league and may you cover the spread on every bet.

PEACE!