Food

This is sending me straight into one of the middle-class shame threads but I can highly recommend Sutton Hoo chicken. We get it from a local butcher and it’s just awesome. It’s a totally different thing from little, wet, watery floppy supermarket chicken. A whole one is like £23 but i can get half a dozen wings for £3:50 and they’re literally twice the size of a normal wing, with drumstick levels of meat on each.

Aah man.. sounds delicious.. I’ve been dry baking chicken wings.. after deep clean with fresh lemons thorough skin scrap.. coated in baking soda and salt / pepper seasoning.. honey soy sriracha sauce added at plating with finely chopped bird’s eye chilis and sesame seeds..

What does the baking soda do ???

I dry bake wings regularly too. Greek oregano seasoning, paprika, lemon zest, salt and EVOO (sometimes I'll throw in a dash of soy for more umami). Oven/grill until charred and crispy, so fucking good.

Makes them crispier.

It's October so I made parkin. Sorry, no photos because we ate it.

Dry baked wings is my go-to as well. I do them on a rack so the rendered fat drips away. I prefer them this way to fried. Crispier innit. The baking soda kinda puffs up the skin to make them even crunchier.

Also, when I do buffalo wings, (which is probably every couple of months (always when the missus is out so I can enjoy them in peace withot someone giving me the side-eye as I inhale them) I do the hot sauce in one bowl, the blue cheese in the other. Then it's dip-dip-eat. That way you keep the crunch of the wing and can balance how much of each sauce you want on each bite. An your hands don't get covered in sauce. Triple win.

^^Both of those flavourings sound amazing. Got some ready for tonight, gonna try both of your methods!

Porto was lovely. Not sure I could eat another Francesinha again

Not quite sure how the lanche misto has never made it to British consumers like the pastel de nata has - it's perfectly beige and delicious as it gets

Hate to say it but if you want the best crispy chicken wings you just need an air fryer.

I fucked around with brining and baking soda and drying overnight in a fridge and baking and grilling and it turns out 205c for 15 mins is the holy grail.

Francesinha. Oh yess. Went to Lisbon in the summer and discovered these.

How to say you are northern, without saying you are northern.

It has in a few Portuguese places in Stockwell.

What am I missing with chicken wings? Also I don't eat chicken skin. Eating the wings seems like a lot ot work for very little reward.

This is the way.

Still love a dry brine and baking soda on top of it though.

Fair.

👍

doing a chicken in cider with prunes for sunday lunch this weekend, any advice on some little additions to give it a bit of extra flavour.

ingredients

chicken
cider
prunes
streaky bacon
onions
shallots
garlic
couple of table spoons of cider vinegar
served with mash potatoes

possible extras for a depth of flavour or to compliment the chicken / cider ..... bay thyme whole grain mustard ? any thing i have overlooked ?

I love wings but I've never really got the hang of dipping wings in sauce, it just ends up on the cartilage, which I don't eat? A pouring sauce is easier to get on the actual chickeny bit in the middle

You've got plenty of flavours going on there, I doubt you'll need anything else, just season well with salt and pepper.

But not too much salt, you've already got bacon in there.

all the recipes i've been looking at don't have many extra bits and bobs. like you say if you try and cram in too much it can spoil the basic ingredients and the simple flavours.

mum used to make it when i was young so i thought i'd see what i could rustle up, see if it was as tasty as i remember.

maybe a little roux added at the end to thicken things up a little. looking forward to it already !

Either onions or shallots as onions may over power the suttle shallot flavour.
I'd slow cook (as easy) to get the sweetness of the onion or shallots using cider to deglaze the pan. Or cook in butter and a dash of balsamic.

Sweet or dry cider? Does it make a difference?

You could try a little apple brandy or marsala for a slight difference in flavour to the cider. Only other thing could maybe be some chestnuts or a little mustard

I'd probably cook the bacon first, set aside, get some colour happening on the chicken in the bacon fat, set that aside, then fry the onions off lifting the fonde off the bottom of the pan and deglazing with the cider before chucking it all back in the pan. Seasoning as you go, obvs. How would you normally do it?

I would probably ditch the prunes and add some parsnips and carrots instead, but that's just me. Sounds delicious.

yeah pretty much that ^ although there are a lot of chicken pieces ( 7 people 2-3 pieces each ) though so may just season and roast them in the oven rather than pan fry them to get the skins all crispy and seared, then chuck them in the sauce to cook for an hour or two . the prunes were part of mums recipe so i'll stick with them. i have done a version with the stew veggies like parsnip carrots suede all in cider in the past which was pretty delicious. also have done a version with white wine as the sauce liquid also pretty nice.

maybe get mum to bring round a few of this years cox's orange pippin apples from her tree and chuck some slices in for an addition layer of appley goodness. the apple brandy sounds good but extravagant ! saying that some of the local cider makers are producing their own calvados / brandy type spirits from their ciders so might grab a bottle or two for xmas. haven't ever tried the locally produced ones so would be good to get a sample before glugging it into the sauce.

Dessert apples when cooked will be way too sweet for this. Cooking apples if anything, but surely better without

Cider, bacon and garlic really wants cream too. It's an old school sounding dish anyway so that works