CHICKEN, KFC and WINGS
RULES AND CLUES — Poultry requires very careful handling to avoid foodborne illness.
- In the culinary field the dreaded cross- contamination.
- Poultry should be used with within two days of purchase or frozen immediately.
- When I purchase large amounts of cut poultry like bulk packaged chicken breasts or thighs, legs and wings come from recognized sources like SAM’s or COSTCO. I repack them individually.
- The next step is critical and time sensitive to prevent contamination. Against all rules, I wash either the breasts, boneless and skinless thighs in deep underneath cold water.
No splashing for cross contamination, portion them, pat dry and double seal them in food wrap till I’m ready to use them. - I also have an ultraviolet food lamp when sealing. Some are telling you not to wash chicken parts because you have to be careful as these parts may contain bad boys and splashing them all over the kitchen can contaminate. I have a system and it is safe. Under water does it. No splash. Ultra Violet Light, No bad boys...
- For counters and tray or sink, I use Clorox Super Cleaner+Bleach Comes in One gallon pack w/sprayer at Sam’s etc. ( Soap and Clorox in a spray bottle on all my counters and cutting boards after washing) Cleans sterilizes and evaporates well. Or you can use vinegar and water.
- I use a baster to get (Suck mode) the last of the air out if all I have is Zip-Locks I then constantly wash my hands and any surfaces they may have touched with either soap, vinegar and water or Clorox Clean-up.
- Preferably you should thaw poultry in the refrigerator, the microwave makes rubber chicken, and never leave it on the counter.
- I use LODGE cast-iron sauciers, pans and griddle plates for Chicken Fried, Braised or Ovened.
- Do not bring it down to room temperature, a little colder than room temperature till it hits the hot pan or oil is preferred and it cuts nicer. Well-cooked poultry is safe. It is the skin that carries most of the dangerous microbes. And water and skin in hot oil is not a good idea.
Kitchen Fact: The safe internal temperature for cooked chicken is 165° Fahrenheit (75° Celsius). A meat or instant-read thermometer is your best bet for determining the temperature of your chicken, and if you're cooking a whole bird, it should be inserted into the thickest part of the thigh but not touching bone.
Buffalo Wings, Thighs And Happy Cleaning…
- Most Buffalo-style wings are deep fried, 7-9 minutes in restaurant circles in a 350-375 control temperature fryer.
- I do not care for the eBay, HSN, Amazon cheap home deep fryers, I have seen and been witness to a runaway fryer, stinky houses, oily kitchens and oil burns.
- They are just too dangerous in a non-professional environment with uncontrolled kids in the kitchen. And your kitchen will start to stink and eventually get coated with a light coat of oil.
Happy Cleaning. Restaurants have extensive exhaust system that vent outside your kitchen stove only vents the air horizontal away from the fryer coating your kitchen with a mist of hot oil including the cabinets and walls, the ceiling and so forth - During the holidays, it’s a good time to teach kids to cook if they are old enough, mature enough, interested and if you can get their attention away from toys and gifts.
- Here is a trick I use, I put caution tape up to keep the little ones out.
- If you ever watched Ramsey when he goes into a kitchen, first place he attacks are the fryers and grills are is usually unsanitary and greased up.
- Holidays gatherings are not a good time with extra people and kids running in and out of the kitchen. Besides again and I don’t care for the bullshit by TV shills and pitchmen that their fryers will not stink up your house and leave a nice coat of oil on all the surfaces.
Wings In A Real Meal ( See Photo At Top)
I pan fried some wings in a large iron skillet ( LODGE, the best cooking tools of Ironware) to make sure they hit after dredging in egg-wash and flour in olive and canola oil mixed 50/50, then egg-wash again and dip into Doritos Barbecue flavored chips smashed to death in a gallon size Ziplock bag, or your blender, and then the WINGS and THIGHS were shaken together.
Bigger, game size servings I bake, rather than the pan, the Doritos (or Lays) have many flavors you can play with and the results usually work out well. Lay them out on a pan in a 350 degree oven for about Thirty minutes.
Prior to pan frying the chicken, I had pan-fried or softened celery, onions, green pepper, scallions and a small shredded carrot, then combined the two for final assembly. Actually I cheated I used two pans and cut the time in half. I then poured over a mixture of melted butter and Franks liquid hot sauce, some with Teriyaki Sauce.
For bigger portions, the Doritos wings worked great in the oven foil trays from GFS [Gordon Food Service] with the prepped veggies and no muss no fuss and came out ready for ten hungry people. Nothing survived, they ate the whole enchilada.
Dry Plates Are A Sign Of Success! I Got Great Reviews!
🐔 Wing Sauce Wars — Frank’s Louisiana Hot Sauce Regular… I used regular which is hot enough, because the hot is really hot. Others preferred Crystal. Eggs yes, wings no… This is an on-going battle here in the South, Franks and Crystal have been going at it for decades. It’s a cult thing but they do have two distinct flavors. Eggs in the AM, I like Crystal, Wings I like Franks.
- Both of these hot sauces are readily available in most grocery stores and don’t be surprised to find fifteen other sauces plus another fifteen other than Buffalo.
- Place sauce and melted butter in a deep Tupperware bowl, add the cooked wings, cover with tight lid and shake well.
- I pull them out with tongs or dump them on a strainer with the same bowl size on the bottom and let them drain.
- I mix Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing with Franks regular for a lighter combo and they love it. I also mix it stronger with a little rice vinegar for a sauce used on Sushi Rice called Dynamite sauce.
- Lately with age, I now use, endorse, love, damn thats good, give me more, incredible sauces by Sweet Baby Ray. Literally tossed or used up everything else I have in my pantry for Sweet Baby Ray’s sauces. They came out recently and now have a great assortment of flavors for all kinds of cooking.
Product Development Of Wings — Americas Food Ripoff —
- Wings, an American favorite started as the trash part of the chicken and mainly considered useless. Culinary entrepreneurs embraced them. The four or five salient popularity points for a restaurant to sell wings are:
- They are easy to count, portion and inventory and you can make them a zillion different ways.
- Wings can stay frozen and don’t spoil, but most importantly they are very popular.
- Their success pushed by the restaurant trade is simple…you follow the money and the garbage wings at 17-25 cents or less are a money maker at an average of a seventy-five cents to a dollar each, some places sell wings at ten for twelve dollars retail with an overpriced beer.
- PROFITABLE IN MORE WAYS — The last, being the most important point obviously. Profitable is also involved in training help, with fast no prep work, as they come in bulk, frozen, right to the fryer, dip in a toss bowl and serve. Critical: you must hire help that can count !
- To be authentic, and if you just made them conventionally, you’ll need to accompany your hot wings with fresh, crisp celery and blue cheese dressing, both of which are said to help ease the heat of the hot wings and thighs.
- I just don’t make it too hot, folks can add all the Aqua Regia or Molten Lava (an actual brand of hot-sauce) they want, so the rest of us can watch their innards drip onto the floor in the TV show, ER TRAUMA TODAY…
- As you get older (and wiser) you adjust. Too many of the hot dishes today seem to be going ballistic with stupid TV cooks dare-eating shows with hosts that have alimentary canals made of cast iron. Later in life they will get to meet PBTN, the trifecta, Pepto Bismol, Tums and Nupercainal and a colon inspection…
- PROMOTES BEER SALES — I do however prefer a liberal amount of Coors, Miller Lite or Shock Top with a slice of orange added to kill the heat pain. A six-pack for thee is appropriate.
- The leftover sauce, I served it over rice for the veggies content that cooked with the wings. The sauce made a nice combo, I put it in a gravy bowl, so remember to put out spoons and forks. The plates came back clean except for bones so I know they liked the veggies.
- Note: you can also bake the chicken in a 350-375 degree oven for about a half to 3/4 hour if you are not a pan frier and trying to save your arteries and veins. A good rub is better when baking.
Another Great idea —CURRY
08/07/2021 aljacobsladder.com