Friday, May 16, 2008

Clifton Springs Chicken Wings - Oven-Fried with Sticky Ginger Garlic Glaze

My mom lives in a small town in western New York, called Clifton Springs. It was home to a popular spa around the turn of the century, thanks to a natural sulfur spring. People came from all over to soak in the therapeutic water, which was supposed to cure all kinds of things. Unfortunately for the town, medical science was unable to verify these claims, and eventually people realized they were just paying to sit in stinky water. Things have been a little slow ever since. So, I figured the least I could do is name a recipe after the place (and it rhymed).

Whenever I go home to visit, I usually indulge in some Buffalo chicken win
gs from a place called Emerson's. They have two flavors of wings; Buffalo-style, and sweet and sour. I've only had the later once and wasn't impressed. I'm just a traditionalist I guess. This week I got a craving for chicken wings, and since there isn’t a decent chicken wing place west of the Niagara River, I decided to make some myself.

I don't use a fryer, but have a great method for frying them in the oven. The surprising part was when I went to make the classic spicy sauce to glaze them, for some reason I remembered those sweet and sour wings, and decided to try something new. I came up with what turned out to be a deliciously sticky, ginger and garlic glaze. I really hope you give these a try. But, if garlic and ginger aren't your thing, at least use the oven method I demo, and glaze them with your favorite wing thing. Enjoy!



5 pounds chicken wings
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
3 tbsp Frank's hot sauce
2 tbsp veg oil
flour
For the glaze:
3 crushed garlic cloves
2 tbsp grated ginger
1 tbsp Sambal chili sauce (or 1/2 tsp hot pepper flakes)
1/2 cup rice vinegar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp soy sauce

258 comments:

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jozielee said...

OMG, the best wings ever tasted, ever made. Have waited weeks for SuperBowl just to make these wings (don't tell my husband). They're crispy, tangy, absolutely perfect. Will make these time after time. Thanks, Chef John, for this winning recipe!

Anonymous said...

The only problem with these wings is that I didn't make enough! They went so fast that some people didn't get any! Terrific! Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Awesome recipe. I tried it and it was the first time that the family ate the 1kg chicken wings. Highly, highly recommended.
Thanks very much for posting this.
God bless.

ggoldbeck said...

i love to dunk my wings into the sauce then put back in the oven (turned off but still warm) for about 5-10 minutes and then dunk again into the sauce. Makes them finger licking good since the brown sugar has caramelized and sticky! Thanks for the great recipes you give us. I look forward to them all the time.

Anna Komarova said...

Thanks Chef John! I'd never thought i could bake em instead of deep frying. Mine came out same crispy and omg with so less oil used.

Jim Fields said...

Chef John, making this for the god I forget how manyeth time... anyway, just wanted to tell you how great this is and that I discovered something that we do to make the wings even crispier. I do the wing prep either the night before, or first thing in the morning, and arrange them on a sheet pan and grind fresh black pepper and sea salt on them. I then sprinkle them with garlic powder and place them, uncovered, into the refrigerator until dinner time. I then follow the recipe .. hot sauce, grape seed oil, etc. I think the refrigeration takes some of the moisture out of the wings and you end up with a crispier wing. Just my 2 cents. Jim

Anonymous said...

can i fry them instead of baking them.

Anonymous said...

Hi chef John my name is Jennifer I live in the Cayman Island howcan I order your cookbook pls reply thanks

Chef John said...

http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Family-Favorites-Best-Cooking/dp/1445405687 thanks!

Caio Racca said...

Hi, john I'm from Brazil and I just loved this recipe!!! Thanks a lot!!!

Caio Racca

Caio Racca said...

Hi chef John, I'm from Brazil and I just love it!!! My daughter eat a full bowl!!!

Thanks!!!!

Caio Racca

Our1World said...

They are frozen wing. After thawing, I am sure there will be wet with liquid, I assume that I need to wipe them pretty dry before i started the coating/dredging?
Thank you

Kawehi Evans said...

I wanted to know if i dont have rice vinegar could i use white or some other type of vinegar instead?

Anonymous said...

Its been four years since you made this recipe and i havent found better recipe anywhere. These are the best. thanks Chef John.

Anonymous said...

This the best chicken wings I have ever tried to cook! It's really so good! Thanks for sharing! :)

Steven Mon said...

I just tried these for the first time tonight and my goodness, that sauce is amazing. The wings do come out really crispy as if they were fried!

Ariel said...

Hi Chef John,
What type of flour should I use to cook this?

Thanks!

Chef John said...

AP!

Ariel said...

Awesome! Thanks alot (: Gonna try cooking this very soon :D

philogaia said...

This recipe was my selection to take to NYE party. You should have heard the delighted gasps when I brought out this large tray of carefully arranged, sticky, spicy wings. The host grabbed the first one and just repeatedly said "Oh My God!" until everyone was laughing and also grabbing for wings. I didn't use flour or Frank's but just roasted the wings with lots of cayenne pepper. I did hand grate all that ginger and pulverized the fresh garlic, the most time-consuming part of the prep. These were a HUGE hit.

Unknown said...

This wing recipe is a great one people!!!
Just think "General Tso's"

Unknown said...

This is hands down my favourite wing recipe!

Anonymous said...

Good but missing something.

I found some Indian pre-marinated wings in the fridge. Skipped on the Frank's Red Hot Sauce and continued on. I only had a pound and a half of wings so I baked them 25 minutes each side. I also used white wine for the sauce instead of rice vinegar (don't have).

The end result was tasty but it lacked a 'kick'. I'm a big 'kick' guy. Next time I'll use the Frank's and stick with vinegar.

Thanks!

Unknown said...

Wow!! These were amazing. When they were cooking my husband kept asking me when they would be ready. We didnt add the spicy things(he doesnt like anything spicy) so I was worried they wouldnt be as good, but they were great! I cant wait to share them with others (assuming some survive) Thanks again for the recipe.

Unknown said...

can i substitute the rice vinegar for white vinegar?

Unknown said...

I made this and my husband loved it. Thanks Chef John.

Unknown said...

Hi Chef John, I made these wings yesterday and the flavor was great. But I weren't able to get them crispy. Any possible reasons for that??

Unknown said...

Hi Chef John, I made these yesterday and the flavor was great. But I could not get them crispy. Any possible reasons why?

Chef John said...

just use freshly grated! I had some paste in a tube, but fresh grated on the microplane is best.

Unknown said...

Chef,
The sauce is awesome. I however failed to get the crispy coat of the wings. I used corn starch flour. I could even taste the flour on the wings even after 60 mins in the oven. Any advice on how to get the crispy skin? I don't know what I did wrong. Thanks.

Chef John said...

Not sure! I've never used corn flour, so maybe that's it. Use reg white wheat flour.

Unknown said...

Love, love, love! I used about half of the sambal chili sauce because we are wimps, a tad bit more sugar, and sprinkled some sesame seeds over them while they cooled on the pan. Fantastic! Made some fried rice as a side dish and these were gobbled up in no time! They were the perfect heat to sweet ratio for us. Love the oven frying method as well, so much easier and less of a mess! (No old dirty oil to get rid of..what?!?!) :) Thanks Chef John!

Anonymous said...

They were so good. I made them twice so far. Today, I will make chicken balls (with scallions, ginger, garlic and soy sauce) and will use this glaze with them.

L.V.V. said...

Chef john, this recipe is amazing! Kind of like a healthier version of Korean fried chicken. Thank you so much for sharing!

Mikey B said...

Chef John, I made these wings tonight and they came out a little dry but otherwise really tasty. Is that just how an oven wing is supposed to taste?

Chad said...

I'm planning on making some of these for the Super Bowl after a batch of them disappeared at a party I took them too last year. The only difference in my preparation was that I seasoned the wings lightly and cooked them in the smoker before pulling them out and dressing them in the sauce and I used a homemade hot sauce from a mix of peppers from my garden.

campbell said...

I'm making a few of your wings for the game tomorrow. These look great but I'm a little torn, feeling like I should have a traditional Buffalo style in there as well. (I live in Rochester after all.) Would these make a good or better substitute for your Buffalo version?

Thanks for the great videos!

Chef John said...

people seem to love them, so sure!

The Heimish Chef said...

Hi Chef John. I made these for the big game (you know, the one that rhymes with shmoofer roll). They were a huge hit. Even my wife who doesn't like spicy food that much loved them and demanded I make them again real soon. Thanks for this!

Unknown said...

Made a batch of these for dinner, definitely a total hit with the folks. Thanks Chef John!

Ed the house chef said...

Chef, I've made these quite a few times and wanted to share with your readers what I already shared with you.

I substituted Frank's Red Hot with Budweiser Wing Sauce and also seasoned up the flour a bit. Then in the sauce I added the juice of half an orange, a tsp of orange zest and substituted the above wing sauce for the sarachi. The resulting orange flavor was amazing and was quickly the hit of the pot-luck. Even more so than these wings normally are.

Erica Lynn said...

Hi! I used your method and my honey bbq wings came out great... heres my questions... could the same method you used in this post be used for like, chicken thighs or breasts? coast in seasoning and oil, then toss in a bag of flour, and so on?..

El Hermano del Hombre Hombre said...

Does the Sambal sauce go by another name?

Unknown said...

Chef John, this stays between us, but I stole some 'black salt' from an Indian restaurant where I used to work, which is rock salt containing some sulfur (a bit stinky, but I used it on a chickpea curry and it was nice; I have no idea what to do with it!)
Anywaay, this recipe named after the sulfur-filled springs should have some of that in there!
Ok, useless story. I'll walk myself out.

Chef John said...

I like how you're thinking. ;)

Unknown said...

Chef John,

I love your website, and have made some great recipes from it (especially the healthier ones)... Now to the subject of Baked Chicken Wings. I've seen one recipe using flour, and another using mashed Potato Flour/flakes to create a crispiness in the wings. Which method do you prefer, and how do they differentiate in crispiness.

Unknown said...

It's now 2014, I've made these for parties numerous times over the past couple years and everyone absolutely lives them!! Thank you so much for the recipe! One that stays at the top of my list many years later!

Unknown said...

Hey, Boss!

Hope you are enjoying your vacation. Question, I am diabetic so I would rather not use all the brown sugar in the recipe. Do you think a 1/3 C. of honey would satisfy? Or maybe maple syrup... am I getting too weird?

Oddte said...

I have tried these using sesame oil instead of a neutral oil, as recommended. They came out great. Also, I have found they actually come out better if you don't spray the foil or the wings themselves. Enough fat will render off the skin to give you a great texture without making them greasier than necessary.

Barbara said...

OMG! I lived in Clifton Springs as a kid in the 50's. Toooooo funny. My dad worked at the sanitarium. Lots of memories.

Eliza Goytia-Yilmaz said...

These were delicious! They remind me a bit of a Korean dish called dakgangjeong, but not as much work to make. I didn't have any Frank's wing sauce (I'm in Germany and it's not sold here) so I replace that with sriracha sauce. I added extra amounts of garlic and ginger as well as sambal oelek. My husband is a picky eater and he enjoyed these. Thanks for the recipe! I will definitely be making more in the near future.

Unknown said...

Best wing recipe ever ... make it all the time..... Cheers all.

Christiaan said...

These were great, and so easy and mess free.
Do you use seasoned rice vinegar or plain? I used plain as I wanted to keep the sweetness down. I also used palm sugar instead of brown.
A couple of other changes were I used Sriracha, the only hot sauce in the house, and I used Sambal Manis instead of Sambal Oelek as the fired onions in the Manis add a bit more depth.
Thanks again for all your wonderful work.

Unknown said...

I was searching for your chicken wing recipe to use baking powder to coat, but the name of these wings caught my eye and the use of a garlic ginger sauce. They were so full of flavor and I can't stop talking about how amazing these came out. Thank you Chef John. My husband and I love your work.

Unknown said...

This recipe is phenomenal. I used it for the first time a few weeks ago and have made wings every weekend since. Brilliant!

Cyber_3 said...

These were awesome Chef John!

I think it's worth noting though that, if you haven't made wings before, the sauce will taste WAY hotter in the pot than it will on the wings. My sauce blew my head off in the pot so that I toned the spice down a bit but then it turned out pretty mild once I put it on the wings. I would have faith in the original recipe next time.

Unknown said...

Big fan of chef John! Here's my little story: I literally have a dying woman living in my house part time. She's my sister-in-law. Stage 4 C-Word. The black sheep of the family who's lifestyle finally caught up to her. She's awful. Meth, prostitution abandoning her children, doesn't like garlic - you name it...just an awful woman. She's currently living out her last days in my hot tub which on some strange level, I'm happy to provide for her. Made these wings tonight which kept my sanity in a haggard state of repair. Thanks John! You never know what recipe will keep some dude focused enough to make the perfect wing and not off him/herself!
Delicious as always!
Mahalo Chef John!!!

Unknown said...

@Chef John, we absolutely love this recipe! I’ve been making the wings for years and my family still go crazy when I make them!

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