Buffalo wings with blue cheese sauce

Sometime, about a year ago, I discovered quite how easy my favourite chicken wings are to make. 3 litres of Frank’s Hot Sauce and an artery busting amount of butter later and I'm not sure if that's a blessing or a curse. Yep, that’s right. Buffalo sauce contains just two simple ingredients: Frank’s Hot Sauce and melted butter.

The blue cheese dip that inevitably accompanies them is another fantastically simple and calorific concoction – shop-bought mayonnaise and creamy blue cheese. No wonder America is the world’s most obese nation. This discovery has certainly added a few inches to my waistline.

I'm going to go with blessing in any case because sitting down to a plate of buffalo chicken, inhaling the saucy meat then sucking each bone dry before proceeding to run my finger (and sometimes tongue) around the plate to lick up every last speck of sauce is the true definition of finger lickin’ good.

You might have noticed that the pic is actually of drumsticks - I often substitute them for wings because it is harder to find wings from happy chickens, but if you can get some happy wings, then go for those.

This recipe is really rough – I’m only putting measurements in to give an idea of the proportions, but usually I just whack a knob of butter in the pan and pour a generous amount of Frank’s over till it looks about right. Same goes for the blue cheese dip, just do it to taste. 

This is probably far more sauce than most people would consider necessary for 12 wings, but I could drink the stuff and I am not of the opinion that less is more in this case.

I have always wondered why these tend to be served with celery sticks. Is it to allow the eater to feel less remorse for all the calories they have just ingested? I only used them in the picture cause I think they look nice. I never bother with them usually.

Makes enough for 2 people as a starter or snack.

Ingredients

12 chicken wings (or 10 drumsticks)
Vegetable oil
Salt
50g butter (unsalted if you don’t like very salty food), or to taste
150ml Frank’s Hot Sauce, or to taste
50g creamy blue cheese, e.g. St Agur, or to taste
5 tbsp whole egg mayonnaise, e.g. Hellman’s, or to taste 

Method

Preheat the oven to 190C.

Rub the chicken wings in a little oil.  Place skin side up on a large roasting tray (or two trays) and season with salt. This makes the skin crisp up a bit. Bake in the oven for approx. 25 minutes. 

Meanwhile, melt the butter in a saucepan over a low heat and add the Frank’s Hot Sauce. Stir to combine, remove from the heat and put to one side. 

To make the blue cheese sauce, put the blue cheese in a bowl and mash with a fork. Add the mayonnaise and whisk with the fork to combine.

Take the wings out after 20 minutes and pour a little sauce over each, mix around a bit so they are coated and put back in for the last 5 minutes. This allows the sauce to meld with the chicken a bit more than if you just pour it on after.

If you want to reduce the calorific content of these slightly, then you can drain the fat before you pour the sauce over, but I find it makes the sauce extra tasty.

Remove from the oven, pile high on a plate, scrape every last bit of sauce from the roasting tray(s) and pour over the remaining sauce. Serve hot with blue cheese dip on the side.