Funky Mojo Wings

I likes me some wings, but why the heck are they do dang expensive? Making them at home is almost as much as buying them from the local pizza shop. Which is probably why this was the first time I actually made wings at home. Well that, and I didn't want to go to all the trouble until I came up with something unique. I didn't want to just smother them in bottled BBQ sauce, and I'm not really a fan of things that are too spicy, so smothering them in hot sauce was off the plate too. But when I saw a bottle of new Chipotle Mojo on the shelf at the grocery store for the first time, it quickly became clear that the time had come.

I got a bag of frozen separated wings, about two dozen or so, and put them into a plastic container when I got home. I poured the entire bottle of Mojo over the wings, and then placed in the fridge to marinate and thaw. As timing went here at home they wound up marinating for about 48 hours before I got back to them, but I would go ahead and let them marinate overnight anyway, especially if they are still frozen of course. You could also give them a shake or flip the container once in a while to make sure they stay covered in sauce while marinating.

Traditional Buffalo wings are deep fried, but to be honest I really don't like them that way. They get leathery and dried out more than they get crispy, so I decided to pan fry mine in an electric frying pan. (Grilled might work nicely for this too.) I glazed the bottom of the pan with canola oil and brought it up to temp, about 350F-degrees or so. I laid down each wing individually, so they weren't all bunched up. You want them all making contact with the pan. I poured a little extra sauce over them, covered, and simmered for about 7 or 8 minutes. Turn, then give them another 7 or 8 minutes.

At this point, I poured off most of the excess from the pan which was a little easier since the wings were sticking to the pan a little. This is a good thing. In fact, we're really going to get them to stick now deliberately, end even start to burn a little. Once you have poured off most of the excess, sprinkle with a dusting of granulated sugar. Turn sugared side down, and sprinkle the other side as you let them sizzle (un-covered now.). Letting them stick to the pan like this, it's going to be hard to not break the skin, but do your best to avoid that, and keep that blackened chipotle goodness hanging on there. I got up under each wing with a regular old pancake flipper. One they are blackened up to your liking, and the sauce is really stuck to them, the wings 'r done man. You should also see the meat just starting to pull away from the bone a little on the drumettes, which will help to verify that they are done all the way through.

Tasting the sauce from the bottle, I was pretty worried that the wings were going to be way too spicy for my liking. The chipotle gave a really deep lingering heat, but as they turned out, they were right on. Some heat, but not enough to make your eyes water or scorch out the flavors. If you really are more of a fire-eater, dribble on some Tobasco or other hot sauce at the end. But the slow-burn of the chipotle should be enough to get your nose running a little without actually being painful.

Bleu cheese dressing is the traditional coolant for wings, so let's go ahead and add the funk to these awesome Mojo Chipotle bad boys. The first time out of the gate, I was not about to stink up my wings with some bottled dressing, and made up my own bleu cheese dressing to dunk. Not too hard to make at all, and oh, so much better than the bottled crap. In a bowl mix at about a 50/50 ration spoonfuls of mayo and sour cream. Fold in crumbled blue cheese. I didn't bother with anything too expensive and found a small tub of it already crumbled for a good price, though some blue cheese can get really expensive. Now we are going to thin it out just a bit with some buttermilk. This is the real funk folks. Buttermilk sounds like it would be sweet and satiny, but actually the opposite is true. Buttermilk tastes and smells like sour milk. Pungent. Mix a little of that in, and your dipping sauce is done. Of course, you can do this while your wings are cooking too, or ahead of time to chill in the fridge. Serving it fresh mixed will give max funk though.

Don't want the dip so funky? You might try a little regular milk, or heavy cream rather than the buttermilk. Don't have sour cream? Try yogurt instead. Don't like blue cheese at all? Get a packet of ranch seasoning and sprinkle that in rather than the blue cheese. Or you might try using Parmesan cheese instead. All of these ideas I might run through sometime in the future. Or if you try them, leave a comment and let me know how it turned out for ya.

Make it a meal by serving with a bowl of sweet corn or some corn on the cob, some rice and beans, or maybe mini-pizzas. 

Here's what to pick up at the store:

1 bag of frozen, separated chicken wings. 1 bottle of Goya brand Mojo Chipotle marinade. Pick up some granulated sugar and canola oil too if you don't have any at home.

For the dip you will need:

Blue cheese, mayonnaise, sour cream, buttermilk.

Grilled Cheese Pizzaiola

I recently went on a kick making a variety of different grilled cheese sandwiches after finding myself with more bread on hand that I would normally ever eat in a week. Cheese is obviously a big part of Italian cuisine, and being such a fan of Italian food, of course I had to come up with an Italian version of the grilled cheese sandwhich. This version is inspired by a dish from Naples called steak pizzaiola, which is basically a cut of beef simmered in a “pizza” sauce.

We start with two pieces of sliced Italian bread, seeded or unseeded at your pleasure. A nice sourdough bread would also be tasty no doubt. Each slice is going to get a smear of tomato sauce.

You should choose a thick, robust sauce for this, not a watery or plain sauce. Jarred or canned pizza sauces would work, as pizza sauces tend to be more robustly seasoned and thicker in consistency than some other tomato sauces for pasta. I had a jar of Emeril's kicked-up garlic that I used a bit of this last time, but any bold sauce like a fra diavolo should be just fine. Consider reducing the sauce in a pan for a while to make it thicker. If all you have is a plain sauce on hand, simmer and reduce, adding extra seasonings, oregano, heavy on the garlic, some black and crushed red pepper. You won't need much sauce for this though, so you can refrigerate the rest for use some other time.

Now lay down a nice thick slice of provolone cheese onto a slice of bread. Mild rather than a sharp or “picante” would be best, nice and creamy. At the deli I ask them to always slice the cheese thick, as it stays in one piece better when you try to peel a slice off the top, and is better for sandwiches such as this one. Meats on the other hand, I always like as thin as possible. A regular sandwich I would sort of “ripple” or “fluff” several slices of meat for a thicker sandwich, but for this application, one thin slice of roast beef will be plenty. The cheese is really the star of the show, and the beef an accent. I used regular rare roast beef, but some delis have Italian-style roast beef that might be put to good use here with its bold flavor. Again though, one thin slice should do. Now top with one more thick round of provolone.

I tried this sandwich using store-bought packaged mozzarella, and it did not work out well at all. Far too rubbery, the whole chunk of cheese just came sliding out when I bit into it. Some fresh mozzarella might work out though, as it is creamier but not as dense as the packaged stuff. I have yet to give that a try myself though. Besides, a nice provolone will really give you a lot of flavor anyhow.

Now go ahead and lay the other slice of bread on top, sauced side down, to complete the assembly. But on the top side, we will put a nice smear of softened butter all the way to the edges. Not too thick, but cover the slice completely.

In a pan, melt another pat of butter so that it is coated nicely. Keep the heat low. When the butter is melted and bubbling some, lay the sandwich in dry side down, and let it sop up the butter in the pan. Keep the heat low. You can't rush a good grilled cheese. We don't want it to burn before the cheese has had a chance to melt. Keeping an eye on the edges of the bread, the residue in the pan, and by sense of smell, I can usually guess when it has gotten to be a perfect golden brown. I lift it and take a peek through a slotted turner. If it is perfect, go ahead and flip it onto the other side that was buttered beforehand.

When it is done, you should be left with a crispy, buttery crust on the outside, with a gooey, cheesy, robustly flavored filling.

Serve with a crisp, cool, green leafy salad for a light meal.

A more standard but still Italian flavored version of the grilled cheese sandwich could also be made by omitting the sauce and slice of roast beef. Instead, just use a slice or two of the cheese and sprinkle the inside with a bit of garlic powder and oregano. Cook the same way, to a nice golden brown with the cheese melted well. Serve as a sandwich, or perhaps in place of plain or regular garlic bread with your favorite Italian meal. It would also go well with a number of soups. You could also cut the sandwich into strips with a pizza wheel and serve the zesty sauce on the side for dipping, as an appetizer, or fun snack for kids.

Olive oil is not usually used when cooking in a pan, because of its low boiling temperature, it begins to smoke and burn rather quickly. But a good grilled cheese should be made at very low heat anyway so it might be worth a try here in place of the butter. It would be in keeping with traditional Italian flavors and just a bit more healthy, if one could really consider a grilled cheese sandwich healthy, lol.

The shopping list is simple: Sliced Italian-style bread, provolone cheese sliced thick, roast beef sliced thin, pizza sauce, butter.

Classic Grilled Cheese

Sometimes it's the simple things, done to perfection, that give us the most pleasure. A grilled cheese sandwich is one of those things. So let's make it a double shall we?

We'll start with four pieces of white bread. The sliced "old-fashioned" sort works excellent, a little thicker, and a little drier than a standard loaf, which will make for great texture when it is done. Lighter and crispier rather than pasty and flimsy. "Day old" bread works great too, being a bit dried out.

Cheese. Nothing more classic than yellow American cheese of course, but Double Gloucester is a similar but tasty alternative.The choice is yours of course. What you should do though, is get it fresh sliced from your local deli rather than using the more plastic-like plastic-wrapped slices in the cooler section. Ask them to slice it extra thick. American cheese is a rather soft cheese which tends to break easily when trying to pull a slice off, especially when sliced thin. Thick slices will help make it easier to handle, and perfect for sandwiches. Slap down a nice thick slab onto two of your four slices of bread, or perhaps two slices if you are stuck with thinner sliced or packaged cheese. Top with the other slices of bread, so that you now have two assembled  sandwiches.

Put a frying pan on the burner and turn on the heat very low. Melt about a tablespoon of butter in the pan. While the butter is melting there, smear the topside of your two sandwiches with softened butter completely, but just a thin coating.

When the butter in the pan is melted, go ahead and lay your sandwiches in, dry side down. The key here is to get just the right temperature in the pan, and maintain that temp. Most folks make the mistake of using too much heat and cooking the sandwich too fast. Low and slow is how to do it best. Just a very little bit of bubbling and crackling as the bread soaks up the melted butter in the pan. Watch the edges of the bread and the color of the butter in the pan, use your sense of smell to help guide you to the perfect crispy golden-brown crust, the color of caramel. Use a slotted spatula to so that you can pick up the sandwich out of the pan and have a look at the color. If it's not quite there yet, lay it back in. When it's perfect, go ahead and flip to do the same to the other side, already lightly buttered.

Cooked slowly, the outside of the sandwich will have the perfect, crispy, deep golden crust. Buttery but not greasy. While inside, that rich golden cheese has melted into a gooey sauce poached in fluffy bread. That contrast is why a drier, thicker, less doughy bread works best.

Now let's go ahead and make a meal out of it shall we? A basic tossed salad, cool green and leafy on one side. And on the other, the most classic accessory to a grilled cheese, Campbell's tomato soup. Simplicity, perfect for dipping and slurping. Of course, you could go with a more hearty, complex, tomato soup, but there is nothing more classic than that red and white can of simple goodness we all grew up with.

Here is your simple shopping list:

Bread, cheese, butter

Can of tomato soup.

Lettuce, cucumber, tomato, dressing. (Avoid a thick creamy dressing, to keep the contrast of your meal.)