the Wings

We had our annual Block Party on Sunday.

Actually, it was scheduled a week ago, but it poured and postponed by a week - even though the invite said 'rain or shine'.

For the original date, 710 made brownies with toffee in them and on top. It sounded better than they actually turned out. I'm actually ok the party was rescheduled, as we didn't end up serving them.

The new date brought a new idea and a new recipe: Chorizo Chicken Wings.

We snagged the recipe from Sara Moulton from her PBS show. Overall, I don't care that much for her Public Broadcasting show. I was much more a fan of her FoodTV Sara Live a few years back. The idea that she'd cook the meal live and serve it up in an hour - no edits and she did it with a viewer who cooked along with er via the phone.

Moulton's wing's recipe seemed simple enough - at least how she did it on TV, but it was a little labour intensive. There are a lot of dirty dishes, measuring cups and cutting boards. You can see, there aren't tons of ingredients, but two pounds of chicken wings lend to a lot of cross-contamination.

And I wasn't sure how having chorizo on the outside of the wings would work. Two very different kinds of protein. But Rice Krispies make it all better - no?

There is the wet and (mostly) dry part of the concoction, almost like baking.

Raw chicken is messy....and icky. I just coated it with vinegar, mayo and garlic. It was to make the coating to stick onto the wings. 

Paprika, Cumin, Salt, Pepper, Parmigiano, Snap, Crackle and Pop. Oh, and the chorizo.  We couldn't find Spanish, so we had Mexican. It was fine. 

We very very very barely had enough coating to get the wings coated. And it was harder to get the chorizo to actually stick to the chicken than Ms. Moulton alluded. 

30 minutes later we had really great looking and smelling wings.  I only had one, to make sure they were good. They were. 

Sara will say they are addicting. I'm not sure about that. They're good, but I don't know I'd make them en mass.  But they had great flavour and they were so fricking tender and moist. 

Our block party day was a beautiful day. Sunny and mid-70s (in October!) until 20 minutes before the start of the event - then 50 mph winds and threat of rain, and then rain. 

But we were there and then it was moved into a neighbor's large garage, so we had somewhere to put down the wings and when we left 30 minutes later (we had another engagement), half the wings were gone. A few folks I talked to couldn't place the sausage flavour - and why should they?

I mean, who thinks of covering chicken with bits of sausage? I never did. 

I might make them again, for a holiday party or something. The prep time takes longer than the cooking time. The clean-up time takes twice as long as the prep time. 

But if you're looking to take an appetizer to a party, you might want to try this. 

Song by: Gustavo Santolalla