Man B Que Hot Wings

Gluttony never looked so tender and juicy

Ah, Buffalo wings - beer makes you more delicious, and you make beer more refreshing. It's a relationship so heartwarming that Jack and Diane seem like Hitler and Eva Braun by comparison.

Prior to all the hipsters proclaiming love for tripe, kidneys, and tongue, Buffalo wings were the original culinary "one man's trash ..." story. As you all probably know, the wings were invented at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, NY, as a way to get some use from a part of the chicken that was then thought of as garbage. A little hot sauce and blue cheese later, they've become so popular as to substantially screw with the price of chicken itself.

If you're going to do this, do it right. Get the jointed wings and chop those bad boys down to that familiar, recognizable shape for delicious preparation. Boneless wings are for chattering sorority girls and Guy Fieri ... I repeat myself. You want that satisfying pile of bones and gristle, paying tribute to your power as a barbaric man (or, if you prefer, Amazonian lady). If you work in retail or a cubicle, it's probably as bad-ass as you're going to feel the entire week.

It should be said right off the bat that we're calling these "Hot Wings" and not "Buffalo Wings." They are not prepared in the traditional Buffalo style (i.e., not fried to hell, more than 2 ingredients in the sauce), and people from that region get mighty uppity if you deviate. This might not be Buffalo, but you can enjoy a crispy skin with a much more tender and juicy inner wing. Who ever said Buffalo was perfect, anyway? Certainly not anyone who watched Super Bowls XXV-XXVIII.

The Setup

Don't forget, you also need a big plastic cup, featuring your alma mater, filled with half cheap whiskey and half Coke.

You'll need the following equipment:

- Good tongs (not the tiny ones that your mom bought you when you moved into your own place that make your hands cramp and look like Stephen Hawking's).

- Nonstick saute pan

- Large mixing bowl (for tossing wings in sauce)

- Rimmed baking pan lined with foil

Ingredients

1 dozen chicken wings (not wing pieces, actual chicken wings)
Four for dusting, seasoned with salt and pepper
3 tbsp vegetable oil
3 tbsp butter

8 tbsp hot sauce (in Buffalo, they use Frank's Red Hot. Just saying.)
8 tbsp butter (that'd be one stick. What, you expected health food?)
1 1/2 tbsp white vinegar
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/8 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp Worcestershire
1/4 tsp salt

Cooking

1. Cut through the wings at each joint. Set wing tips aside for stock, or throw away. Or do whatever you want. They're yours. Just don't try to make them into hot wings. That'd be gross.

2. Place all sauce ingredients (that second grouping of things above) in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil briefly, then simmer over low, stirring to prevent sticking.

If you want the traditional sauce recipe, than ignore everything but the butter and hot sauce.

3. Dust chicken wings in seasoned flour. Shake off excess. Preheat oven to 375.

4. Heat 2 tbsp each of the butter and oil over med/med-hi, depending on your oven range. Using both butter and oil will keep the butter from burning in the pan.

Cast iron works too. But if you put that in the dishwasher when you're done, I'll come over and punch you in the throat.

5. Brown wings in skillet for 3-4 min, until nice and golden. Flip then and repeat. Remove to baking pan.

If you want, you can brush your wings with sauce at any time during the following steps. It's going to lead to much less crispy skin, but they'll be both juicy and saucier than a 1920s burlesque performer. Your call.


6. Bake in the oven at 375 for 30-35 min, depending on the size of the wings.

The chicken juice and sauce leaking off of the sides of the pan, on to my oven floor, explains why I recommend a rimmed baking ban. Do as I say, not as I capture on film.

7. Turn oven up to 400, and bake for an additional 10 minutes.

8. Pour finished wing sauce into bowl. Remove pan from oven. Throw the wings into the sauce a half-dozen at a time, and toss in the bowl.

9. Crack open a cold beer, mutter "hell yes" to no one in particular, and throw on the DVD of Roadhouse. Enjoy yourself.

With an entire bowl of extra sauce - dip the celery in it, brush your teeth with it, or just drink it alone in the dark while staving off tears. Hooray for dignity!

Sasuagefest

Sausage Queen, 1958. Angioplasty Queen, 1965.

Oh, the horror of the sausagefest. It's a constant fear of the party and bar goer. This sausage fest is a little different. Ground meat spiced with flavors that are out of this world. Yes I am referring to packaged meat. What could be better than a good old fashioned fresh sausage, hot dog, bologna, summer, or any other variety of encased meat known to man? Well, a little alone time with your woman, I suppose.

But as far as what goes on the table, I think it’s a very short list. What other single food item can cross all meal boundaries? It's breakfast, it's lunch, it's a snack wherever, or an elegant dinner (possibly on a bun). Everyone's familiar with breakfast sausage as a staple, but what other types of sausage are out there? Cajun is one category. These sausages are a mix and adaptation of many European cultures; boudin and andouille are two of the most widely-known. Another option would be German sausage - bratwurst or frankfurters, among others. Other European nations also have great sausage; Poland has Kielbasa, and Spain has chorizo.

Then we've got Italian sausage. Sausage was originally a method of preparing tougher or much less desirable cuts of meat and packaging them with enough spices and seasoning to choke a goat. Nowadays, the quality of meat is much better, but you still never know. Buying sausage is in my mind one of those things that can be dicey, you never know what some folks may think is acceptable for use in sausage. Therefore I suggest making your own. Grinding your own meat can be a time consuming and EXTREMELY messy, the first time I did it without supervision I managed to splatter pork blood on the ceiling and walls of my mother’s kitchen - BIG, BIG mistake (though even she thought it was exceptional sausage when it was all cleaned up).

I grew up watching the great men in my life make everything they ate. No matter what it was, growing a garden, hunting or fishing for meat, they made some of the best food ever. Sausage was a tradition. We made it all breakfast sausage mostly but we dabbled in other varieties. This is one of our favorites.

Italian Cheese & Red Wine Sausage

4 lbs. boneless pork butt or shoulder
2 tbsp coarse-ground fennel seed
2 bay leaves, crushed
1/4 c chopped parsley
5 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp dried red pepper flakes
2 tsp salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 c grated Romano or Parmesan cheese
3/4 c dry red wine
4 yards sausage casing

Grind the meat using the coarse blade. Mix all ingredients together and allow the mixture to sit for 1 hour before stuffing into casings.

Apology Chipotle Burger

Man B Que is a huge part of my life and I spend a lot of time promoting the whole concept. It's great, I travel A LOT for work and everywhere I go I tell people about it and they always seem to respond with great enthusiasm. Never is this more true than when being around family. Unlike at work where everybody wants to give me a "great" recipe I "have" to try, my family is chill. They want to get to know what this "Man B Que" thing is that I have been obsessing about and more importantly, they want a peek into the grilling maniac mind so they can understand this odd passion.

I'm out in Connecticut for work and I've been spending time with my aunt Armandina and my uncle Al, they wanted to take me out to dinner, so they let me pick the place. I decided to go to a "world famous" pizza place that everybody raves about. Big mistake. (I'll rant about this on the upcoming East Coast Pizza Wars blog) Anyway, I felt like a big ass, so I figured, the best way to counteract a bad food experience is with a great one. I didn't want to rely on some restaurant, so being the "Man B Que Godfather," I dug into my meat eating brain and created a new burger just for them. I named it the "Apology Chipotle Burger" because "I'm Sorry Aunt Armandina and Uncle Al Chipotle Burger" was way too long.

This is a smokey flavored burger with just the right amount of bite. The chipotle seasoning gives it the smoky flavor and combined with the pepper jack cheese give it a bit of a bite. My suggestion is to serve these on a nicely toasted and buttered kaiser roll and topped with either slices of avocado or a large scoop of guacamole.

Enjoy!

Ingredients:
1.25 Lbs. ground beef: organic, veggie fed 87% lean (yields 3 large burgers)
1 chopped green pepper
1/2 cup chopped oregano
1/2 Lbs. diced hot pepper jack cheese
8 tbsp. of butter
1 egg: organic, vegetarian fed
1/2 Cup of seasoned bread crumbs
Guacamole or avocado

Seasoning ingredients:
.25 cup chili powder
1 tablespoon dried cilantro
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon Mexican oregano, leaves
1 tablespoon dried sweet basil leaves
1/2 tablespoon garlic powder
1/2 tablespoon dried thyme leaves
1/2 tablespoon crushed chipotle pepper

1. Start off by mixing all of your seasoning ingredients in a small bowl, place the bowl to the side for now. The amount I've recommended makes a bit more than 1/2 cup of seasoning.

2. In a large bowl, mix in the green peppers and cheese with the ground beef. Make sure the ingredients are nice and evened out.

3. Melt the butter. After melting add your butter add the egg and whip both together.

4. Add cilantro and seasoning mix to the whipped egg/butter and mix both evenly.

5. Combine the beef with the butter mix. While mixing the two, add in your bread crumbs. Again, make sure everything is nice and evenly mixed.

4. Shape your patties. I like starting them off as almost a meat ball and then massaging them down to a flatter shape.

5. Place the patties on some foil and stick in the freezer for about 30 min

6. After removing from the freezer, throw your burgers on the grill. For higher heat, place for about 10 minutes per side, medium heat about 14 minutes per side.

7. Add sliced avocado to the top of the burger or a large scoop of avocado.

8. Eat the f@ck out of these burgers because they will be delicious.

-The Godfather

The Home Place: Traditional Hatchie Botton Stew

Down Home

Down home cooking - what is it to you? Everyone has their own version. A meal traditionally served at a certain time or on a specific occasion. Usually a hearty comfort food that cures what ails you. It could be your family's Christmas morning breakfast or just the annual Thanksgiving meal. To me, it's something special, a meal that has been eaten by my ancestors for over a century. It's called Hatchie Bottom Stew, and it's my down home meal. The stew around the West Tennessee homelands originated with a number of things that come together only in the Fall season, when temperatures start to cool, and a hearty, warm stew is the ultimate comfort food. This is a stew inspired by my ancestors from Virginia, where the traditional Brunswick stew is a staple food. It may be served at squirrel-hunting camps, family reunions, church dinner-on-the-grounds, political rallies, or any other gathering.

Our farmer friends often freeze the basic ingredients and make a stew in the middle of winter when farming slows down. Fall is the ultimate food season to me because:

1) The late crop of sweet corn is at its peak.
2) The tomatoes are late in the season and are the sweetest and most flavorful.
3) Squirrel season has opened, and the little critters are plentiful.

The Setup

It's a simple food, taking very few ingredients, but lots of time, and usually some help with the stirring. Because this dish does take time, it's recommended that it be prepared outside, as is traditional, in the biggest pot you can find. Perhaps something in the near-bath tub variety. Your normal kitchen utensils need not apply to this task - you'll need a wooden tool that more closely resembles a boat paddle.

Now for the ingredients, you can make as big of a stew as you can fit in you pot, but the ingredients are as follows:

- One chicken (skin, meat and bones)

- One squirrel (not required, but traditional), meat and bones

- One stalk of celery, roughly chopped

- One onion, cut into eight chunks

- One can diced tomatoes

- One can corn

Cooking

The method can be somewhat of a marathon. This is where the help comes in.

1. First, fill your large pot with all your meat, the celery, and the onion. Fill the rest of the pot with water. Then bring it to a boil.

2. Once it is boiling, cover it and turn off the heat (do not uncover until the outside is cool to the touch). By this time the meat will be cooked through. Now it is time to pick it. Begin pulling the meat off of the bones making sure to keep everything but keep the meat separate (this means no cartilage). It doesn't hurt to quickly run a knife through the meat to make sure that none of the pieces are too stringy and long.

3. After you have this completed, strain half of your original liquid, put meat in strained liquid and begin to simmer, stirring occasionally.

4. The rest of the liquid should then be boiled with the bones and skin to produce an excellent stock. As the pot with the meat begins to thicken and reduce, the addition of the stock is recommended after straining (when stock is finished, bones may then be discarded).

5. Once all liquid is added it is time to add the tomatoes. Continue to simmer for an hour, then add the corn, once the corn is added, the stew will begin to thicken quickly and will begin to stick to the sides. To combat this, constant stirring is necessary for an additional hour. After this final hour the stew is ready to serve.

The stew - not quite thick enough yet, but it will tighten up as time goes by

Serving

Service of the stew should be done quickly while it is still hot, or cooled in small batches and frozen. In my mind, only four things are appropriate as accompaniments: white bread, saltine crackers, cheddar cheese, and hot sauce. Anything else is just too much.

Further musings

The Anti-Recipe - Many great foods have great recipes. To make Hatchie Bottom Stew great, it is more important to observe what you don't do, and what you don't put in it. My Grandma Dorothy grew up at the center of the stew universe. Her highest compliment is "Well, I hear he makes a real clean stew."

Anti-Ingredients:

- No Chicken knuckles (Bone-end cartlidge -- see Squirrel Heads, below)

- No Squirrel heads (Pick the meat out of the stock, then strain, rather than trying to pick stuff out of the stew pot as it floats by while cooking.)

- No Shotgun Pellets (Again, strain the stock and only put in the final pot what you want to eat!)

- No Livers or Gizzards (There is no more "dirty" stew than one that has livers and gizzards floating by. It's even dirtier if you grind them up. [See Anti-Method below.] Yuck!!!!! Dirty rice is one thing, dirty stew is entirely unacceptable.)

- No Butterbeans (Many good Brusnwick Stew recipes include butterbeans aka Lima Beans. That's fine, soup with butterbeans is often really good, it's just not stew)

- No Green vegetables (That might make it healthy)

- No Strawberries (Some noted stew-making friends of ours always froze mass quantities of stew ingredients whenever they were in season. They also froze a big batch of strawberries. You can see that train wreck coming. Actually, the amount of strawberries in the mass quantity of stew made little difference, but the story was good!)

Anti-Method - Do not grind anything you put in stew. Many people put their stew through a meat grinder. You grind meat for Vienna Sausage and Potted Meat. NOT STEW!!!! Your pulled chicken meat should be chopped up chicken salad size. I guess some people grind their stew to avoid that stringy old rooster!

- Dirt McGurt

Cover Me Christmas: Just Lay Down the Track...

Listen, love and get filled with Great Lakes Christmas Ale to a great cover of Hanoi Rock's "Dead By Christmas" by the Murder City Devils.

Man B Que-Approved: Leon's

Ed. Note: Please welcome the KingT to the Man B Que blog. He's a born and raised Chicagoan who runs the ChiBBQKing blog. This article originally appeared here, and now we're printing it for some of that sweet, sweet reflected glory.





Is Chicago a BBQ town? most out of towners might think so but others from here and also those who aren't might disagree. I view us as a 2nd tier BBQ destination. I also believe there was a time back in the day when it was much more of a presence here in Chicago. However there aren't too many places that aren't considered a part of the BBQ trail that have their very own regional style of 'cue. If you go to any respectable and real BBQ place in Chicago they will have a few things for sure. Rib Tips and links that are smoked in an aquarium style smoker is pure Chicago. While I don't consider Chicago to be an amazing BBQ town it has its fair share of places that have always done it right. One of these famous destinations and well known establishments is Leon's.



Just like any other spot in the food game if you've been around since 1941-which Leon's has-you are going to become legendary. Mississippi native Leon Finney Sr. started to smoke out Chicago in 1941. He started the business with his aunt and to this day it remains in the Finney family. As time passed and the legend grew they expanded and have quite a few locations in the area. Just like anywhere else that has this many outposts, the quality can vary. Also like any BBQ place the consistency can vary. There are a few Leon's including the one Lincoln Park that are franchised owned but I never go to them. If you want the real pork you have to make it to the southside to get the up to par standard that Leon Sr. set the bar with. I have heard that one of the older locations is the 79th street spot in South Chicago. I think its most likely the only location I've been to. It's another spot I've been hitting up since I had my license. Its located off the skyway on 79th just past Stoney.



Now don't get me wrong, I love ribs and they are one of my favorite things to eat but I usually order rib tips from Chicago BBQ joints. Its a part of our cuisine and when done up right I enjoy them greatly. The perfect combination of smoke and fat can make for a heavenly snack. I always order my BBQ with sauce on the side. I don't think smoked meat should be slathered in BBQ sauce. It takes away from the flavor and texture when its swimming in sauce. Its not that I don't like BBQ sauce with my smoked meat I just prefer to dip each bite ever so slightly so I get a taste of pig, smoke and sauce. The rib tips at Leon's can be good not great but usually very good. They have some good smoke flavor but sometimes can be too fatty, chewy and or just not chopped right which is more about the prep then taste.


It was on a day that Leon's was out of rib tips that I discovered their hot links. Obviously I have a love for encased meat along with a love for spicy and smokey. So hot links are one of my ideal eats and one of my favorite spots for them is at Leon's. I would recommend getting the dinner plate which is always enough for leftovers. However one of their great deals is the hot link sandwich which for under $4 gets you a couple links some of their fresh cut fries and a few pieces of wonder bread all soaked in their BBQ sauce. The sandwich is a meal in itself and has been in the lunch or dinner rotation for many people throughout the years. Leon's does it up consistently and that's what people are comfortable with. Its also one of those places where everything on the menu is popular from the ribs to the wings and everything in between. It's one of those stops that if your going to claim Chicago, well then you better know about the original.



- KingT

Manly Mixtape Monday: Your Black-Eyed Peas Antidote

The Manly Mixtape is a weekly six-pack of songs on a theme. It will rock your face every Monday.



There's a reason that hip hop has a bad reputation - everyone representing the genre on TV is either an idiot like Lil Jon or a bland, Wal-Mart friendly group like the Black-Eyed Peas. The latter is especially egregious. Their latest, "I've Gotta Feeling," mixes in Yiddish to prove that the group can suck in not just one, but two languages.

Luckily, we've got a solution for all of that. What follows is a selection of six excellent hip hop songs guaranteed not to throw you into a homicidal rage.

Madvillain - "All Caps"

Madvillain is the collaborative project between producer Madlib and rapper MF Doom, the greatest supervillain-themed rapper ever to throw down a verse. This animated video may invoke some Saturday morning nostalgia, but don't be mistaken, Doom wears that mask in real life as well. This Mixtape could easily be all Doom all the time.


Digable Planets - "Rebirth of the Slick (Cool Like Dat)"

Everyone's got the 1990s one-hit wonder that they can't stop enjoying. I suppose this is mine. If you want to see the video - which is actually pretty well shot - you'll have to link over to YouTube. The record label of this long-disbanded group apparently thinks embedding the real thing will hurt their sales. Jackasses.

Common - "Be"

Common is undoubtedly one of Chicago's finest, even if "Terminator: Salvation" sucked. I mean - one Terminator in the Terminator factory? What the Hell, man? But I'm getting off-topic. Despite the fact that parts of this video look suspiciously like NYC, I'll let that slide. I dig the line "Chicago nights, they stay on the mind." I'd agree, but add that a lot of those memories feature extended blurry spots.

Jurassic 5 - "What's Golden"

J5's three really good albums make up for recording a song with Dave Matthews on their last, terrible, one. They were a lot better than Wu-Tang at successfully incorporating the styles of multiple MCs. Now they're gone, and I blame Dave Matthews.

Panjabi MC, feat. Jay-Z - "Beware"

I have an unexplainable love for Indian music, which I neither attempt to apologize for or explain. Apparently, this is something I have in common with Jay-Z, who during his time as the biggest rapper in the world decided to contribute a few verses to the debut U.S. album of an obscure but talented Indian hip hop artist. Jay is actually contributing to an existing track - "Mundian to Bach Ke" - which is itself based on the Knight Rider theme. Sweet. As is the bitchin' Bollywood-influenced video, edited down from the original song's video.

The Roots, feat. Cody Chesnutt - "The Seed 2.0"

The Roots are madly talented - why they ever decided to back up Jimmy Fallon's unfunny schtick on late night, I will never know. At least it's a steady paycheck for a band that puts on the most amazing live show I've ever seen.

- JB Mays