Chicken Wings

Chicken wings are the ultimate comfort food for me. Its something that gives me the same 'happy' effect that I get when I have dessert.May sound weird here, but its true.  :)

I have noticed that in a lot of restaurants they fry the chicken to 'death' ... literally! Chicken wings should be handled with care. Its ultimate taste and essence comes when it is cooked just right. The perfect chicken wing carries on the flavor as a garment and is soft and crunchy at the same time. Maybe my thoughts are going too far, but i guess a chicken wing 'fan' like myself could understand what I'm talking about!

CILANTRO CHICKEN WINGS

Ingredients:

1. Chicken wings (5 wings, cut into 3 parts at the joints)
2.  Yoghurt (3/4 cup)
   
3. Ginger (1tsp)
4. Garlic (2 cloves)
5. Cilantro ((1/2 cup, roughly cut)
6. Onion (1 medium)
7. Lemon (1/2 medium)
8. Spice Mix (Chili powder (1tsp), Cumin powder (3/2 tsp), dried Methi leaves (1tsp), Salt & Pepper (according to taste))

Method:
 Get all the ingredients ready

 

 In a food processor, process all the ingredients except the chicken. Make sure that you process until you can see small bits of the cilantro.

Tip: Taste the the mixture for adequate spices and salt before putting it in the chicken. The mixture should have a little more salt than you prefer. The reason is because when this mixture has to flavor the chicken also. The 'saltiness' kind of reduces/lessens when you bake/cook.

Add the mixture to the rest of the chicken and marinate it for .5 to 1hr

 After marination, spray some cooking oil to the cooking tray and place the chicken and then pour the marinade over it. Turn the oven on to 455F.

Tip: Put the bigger pieces on one end and the small on the other. The end that has the bigger pieces goes into the oven first. Usually the inside part of the oven is hotter than the 'opening side' or the 'other side.' So this would allow all the pieces to cook at the same rate.

I hope it makes sense ... :)

 I usually do 'eyeball' baking. Meaning, I check what is baking every 30 mins to find out when its done.

So after 30 mins in the oven, the marinade and the water from the chicken should have dehydrated a little bit.

This is the time when you have to flip them 180degrees.

 After turning it gather the surrounding marinade and put it over the flipped wind.

 When its all done, put it back in the oven

 Again after 15-30 mins it should look something like below. As you can notice, the water from the chicken is dried. Flip it again and put it in the oven. At this point the chicken is fully cooked.

But if you want it to be a little bit more crunchy on the ends, fip it back and back until it is cooked to your liking.

 After more baking:

 And its ready :)

The thing that I like most about this preparation is that there is minimal usage of oil (remember we used the cooking spray). Unlike store bought which is mostly deep-fried, this is guilt fee.