(Date: 19 Feb 2013. The 28th recipe in 2013)
This is from Nigel Slater's The Kitchen Diaries: A Year in the Kitchen. I think I almost followed the recipe to word except 2 adjustments: (1) I left the tray of wings in fridge for 6 hours before baking, hoping to deepen the flavour by a prolonged marination, and (2) I used 1.5 kg of wings instead of 1 kg. And the wings I used did not have the tips - not sure if it's just some urban myth or old wife tale, but there have been lots of talks about how grown hormone might have accumulated in chicken tips and that could be really bad to health. Anyway that's not the particularly meaty part. And Halal counter in supermarkets do sell wings without tips. Why not?
14 Chicken wings (large, san tips)
2 medium lemons
5 bay leaves
1 heaped tbsp black peppercorns
2 tbsp sunflower oil
2 tbsp sea salt flakes (gross, do not crush nor ground)
What I did (the order was a bit different from the original recipe)
Preheat oven at 200C (fan). Remove stray feathers from wings. Put the wings onto a roasting tray. Halves the lemons and squeeze them over the wings. Crack the peppercorns into knubbly grit-like small pieces. Do not finely ground them. Mix the cracked peppercorns with oil, then toss with the chicken. Cut the lemon shells into slices. Tuck them, together with the bay leaves, between the chicken pieces. Scatter the gross sea salt flakes over the chicken. Roast for 45 minutes. Turning once in the middle (I didn't turn as I forgot!). The chicken should be golden, sticky, the edges blackened here and there.
What I felt?
I read from some other blogs saying that the original method didn't yield enough lemon-y flavour hence I tried to marinate it for 6 hours before roasting. They turned out to be divinely flavoursome. Lemon & black pepper is not a flavour combination that I am familiar with. I think I actually had never tried not thought about it before. But this easy and handy combination was surprisingly pleasant. They smelt a bit too lemon-y at first when they were fresh out of the oven. But after the first bite I found the black pepper really sing. The lemon wasn't too overpowering but made a good complement to the slightly spicy kick offered by black pepper.
How good was it? 7/10. I like the rich peppery flavour complemented by the refreshing lemons. Yet I found the original instruction of baking them for about an hour way too long. My wings started to turn golden 30 minutes after in and was started to blacken at 40 minutes. While a bit of blackening can add flavour and characters, I don't want the accompanying dryness. I found some of the wings a bit dried out especially those near the hot spots in my dodgy oven. I think if I made this again I'll add an aluminium foil to shield over the wings after 30 minutes of baking and increase total baking time accordingly.
How easy was it? 10/10. Can't think of any chicken wings recipe that can be easier.
How economical was it? 9/10. Wings are cheap. So as lemon. So as black pepper. The total cost of this dish was just under £5 I think.
Will I make this again? Maybe. Although I'd be happily recommending it to anyone, as a big chicken wing fan, I'm very tempted to try out as many chicken wing recipes as I can. Hence I may not revisit this recipe too soon.
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