Chef Kenny
Senior Cook
Well, since there seems to be nothing but crickets chirping in this new forum, I will throw some threads out and see if there is any interest. I see no one cares about hemp hearts so far!
You know what’s low carb by default? Chicken wings! Yep, one of my favorite foods. I had chicken wings down to a science…OK, I had just gotten them basically perfect every time. Then I went “low carb”…and since then I’ve been trying different coatings to replace the cornstarch I have used for years for that extra special “something’. Nothing really equaled the cornstarch and I tried several different flours, meals and starches.
I just recently discovered you don’t need a coating! Yes, typically most wings are not cooked with a coating in those big wing restaurants, and simply deep frying them for 12-15 minutes does make for a decent wing. But I recently ran across someone who wanted low carb crispy wings, and guess what? The double fry like is done with proper French fried is the ticket!
There are several “methods” out there now that I have found, including a very time consuming method developed by the Food Science writer J Kenji Lopez-Alt whose work is outstanding and solves and debunks a lot of repeated fallacies…like “country farm eggs taste better than supermarket eggs”. Yep, he eventually had to do a blind taste study using green food coloring so people could not see the rich color of the farm eggs. Once people could not psychologically have the color of the eggs in front of them, people could not taste a difference.
I digressed, but here’s his research and development on super crunch chicken wings. Pretty extensive, and I’ll try this at some point.
The method I used, was similar but a little less time consuming. I first deep fried the wings at 275° for 14 minutes. Then allowed them to cool to room temp for over an hour. Then re-deep fried at 375° for 6 minutes. The result was very, very crunchy…to the point I may back off the re-fry time just a couple minutes next time. The exterior is really crunchy, yet the interior is still moist and yet still ready to come off the bone.
I’m a Buffalo wing fan…big time. To the point that I literally see no need for any other varieties because I never get tired of Buffalo wings. I have to force myself to play with other versions like Asian, garlic butter parmesan, and dry coatings.
For years I thought I had been using Alton Brown’s Buffalo sauce recipe, but when I searched to find it to provide a link here, none of the results matched my recipe, so, unable to find where this came from (or did I tweak this myself, I can’t be sure), I am sharing the recipe I use.
Buffalo Wing Sauce:
2/3 Franks Red Hot Sauce (absolutely no substitution, ever…for me)
1/2 cup (that’s a whole stick) unsalted butter
1 1/2 tablespoons white vinegar
1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce (don’t use more, this is perfect little tweak)
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (Frank’s is actually not that hot)
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
salt to taste (I don’t really add salt, I don’t think it needs it and I love salt, but it’s in this recipe for some reason)
Heat and stir all in a pan until fully blended
Alt: I usually do it in the microwave in a 2 cup pyrex measuring cup. Be sure to melt the butter first, covered with something, stopping frequently to stir a bit, then add the sauce and everything else, and carefully heat on high intermittently, stirring with a whisk until warm/hot and combined. Let sit at room temp for a while to let flavors meld. Re-heat a bit before tossing with wings, the butter will re-solidify.
I like to let the wings rest for a few minutes fresh out of the fryer, if they are blistering hot and just out of the fryer, I think they steam a bit in the sauce softening the crunch of the exterior.
I use just enough sauce to coat the wings, tossing in a stainless bowl. I’ve worked as a metal guy doing stainless work in the kitchens of Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant chain and seen how they do it. It’s always a toss in a container, but they use plastic containers (from what I observed) and have one for each flavor to re-use all day. They pull the wings from the oil, let them rest a few, then toss in to the plastic bins, squirt a portion of sauce over top, shake until coated and dump on the plate. That’s it!
So, low carb? You bet. Franks sauce says zero carbs in a teaspoon. My guess is there is a carb or two in a few tablespoons though as food companies are not required to list below 1 carb, at least in the past…that’s why manufacturers use ridiculously small serving sizes in so many cases. There is essentially no carbs in white vinegar at this amount, there are 3 grams carbs per tbls in Worcestershire, so the ¼ tsp is negligible and the dry spices (which do have carbs by the way) are so small as to not really register.
So, just to be generous, I’ll say a “serving” of the sauce probably has about 1 gram carbs.
There are zero carbs in chicken wings.
There’s one gram carbs in 2 tbls of the ranch or blue cheese dressing I buy
1 large stalk of celery is maybe 1 gram net carbs (total carbs minus fiber is the Atkins formula)
*By the way, I had never seen celery peeled of its fibers before I saw it on a cooking show. A french chef took a stalk of celery and using a small knife, starting at the smaller end grabbed the long fibers that run the length of a stalk on the backside and pulled them off. I do this all the time now, it eliminates those strands of chewy fiber thing that comes with a lot of celery.
Here's a video showing this...a game changer for me. I really love celery now!
So, this entire meal (and yes, for my wife and I 6 large or 8 medium wings is dinner) is roughly 3 grams net carbs! I was so happy when this occurred to me because I lost so many of my favorite foods and meals over this low carb life change.
This makes me happy.
You know what’s low carb by default? Chicken wings! Yep, one of my favorite foods. I had chicken wings down to a science…OK, I had just gotten them basically perfect every time. Then I went “low carb”…and since then I’ve been trying different coatings to replace the cornstarch I have used for years for that extra special “something’. Nothing really equaled the cornstarch and I tried several different flours, meals and starches.
I just recently discovered you don’t need a coating! Yes, typically most wings are not cooked with a coating in those big wing restaurants, and simply deep frying them for 12-15 minutes does make for a decent wing. But I recently ran across someone who wanted low carb crispy wings, and guess what? The double fry like is done with proper French fried is the ticket!
There are several “methods” out there now that I have found, including a very time consuming method developed by the Food Science writer J Kenji Lopez-Alt whose work is outstanding and solves and debunks a lot of repeated fallacies…like “country farm eggs taste better than supermarket eggs”. Yep, he eventually had to do a blind taste study using green food coloring so people could not see the rich color of the farm eggs. Once people could not psychologically have the color of the eggs in front of them, people could not taste a difference.
I digressed, but here’s his research and development on super crunch chicken wings. Pretty extensive, and I’ll try this at some point.
The method I used, was similar but a little less time consuming. I first deep fried the wings at 275° for 14 minutes. Then allowed them to cool to room temp for over an hour. Then re-deep fried at 375° for 6 minutes. The result was very, very crunchy…to the point I may back off the re-fry time just a couple minutes next time. The exterior is really crunchy, yet the interior is still moist and yet still ready to come off the bone.
I’m a Buffalo wing fan…big time. To the point that I literally see no need for any other varieties because I never get tired of Buffalo wings. I have to force myself to play with other versions like Asian, garlic butter parmesan, and dry coatings.
For years I thought I had been using Alton Brown’s Buffalo sauce recipe, but when I searched to find it to provide a link here, none of the results matched my recipe, so, unable to find where this came from (or did I tweak this myself, I can’t be sure), I am sharing the recipe I use.
Buffalo Wing Sauce:
2/3 Franks Red Hot Sauce (absolutely no substitution, ever…for me)
1/2 cup (that’s a whole stick) unsalted butter
1 1/2 tablespoons white vinegar
1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce (don’t use more, this is perfect little tweak)
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (Frank’s is actually not that hot)
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
salt to taste (I don’t really add salt, I don’t think it needs it and I love salt, but it’s in this recipe for some reason)
Heat and stir all in a pan until fully blended
Alt: I usually do it in the microwave in a 2 cup pyrex measuring cup. Be sure to melt the butter first, covered with something, stopping frequently to stir a bit, then add the sauce and everything else, and carefully heat on high intermittently, stirring with a whisk until warm/hot and combined. Let sit at room temp for a while to let flavors meld. Re-heat a bit before tossing with wings, the butter will re-solidify.
I like to let the wings rest for a few minutes fresh out of the fryer, if they are blistering hot and just out of the fryer, I think they steam a bit in the sauce softening the crunch of the exterior.
I use just enough sauce to coat the wings, tossing in a stainless bowl. I’ve worked as a metal guy doing stainless work in the kitchens of Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant chain and seen how they do it. It’s always a toss in a container, but they use plastic containers (from what I observed) and have one for each flavor to re-use all day. They pull the wings from the oil, let them rest a few, then toss in to the plastic bins, squirt a portion of sauce over top, shake until coated and dump on the plate. That’s it!
So, low carb? You bet. Franks sauce says zero carbs in a teaspoon. My guess is there is a carb or two in a few tablespoons though as food companies are not required to list below 1 carb, at least in the past…that’s why manufacturers use ridiculously small serving sizes in so many cases. There is essentially no carbs in white vinegar at this amount, there are 3 grams carbs per tbls in Worcestershire, so the ¼ tsp is negligible and the dry spices (which do have carbs by the way) are so small as to not really register.
So, just to be generous, I’ll say a “serving” of the sauce probably has about 1 gram carbs.
There are zero carbs in chicken wings.
There’s one gram carbs in 2 tbls of the ranch or blue cheese dressing I buy
1 large stalk of celery is maybe 1 gram net carbs (total carbs minus fiber is the Atkins formula)
*By the way, I had never seen celery peeled of its fibers before I saw it on a cooking show. A french chef took a stalk of celery and using a small knife, starting at the smaller end grabbed the long fibers that run the length of a stalk on the backside and pulled them off. I do this all the time now, it eliminates those strands of chewy fiber thing that comes with a lot of celery.
Here's a video showing this...a game changer for me. I really love celery now!
So, this entire meal (and yes, for my wife and I 6 large or 8 medium wings is dinner) is roughly 3 grams net carbs! I was so happy when this occurred to me because I lost so many of my favorite foods and meals over this low carb life change.
This makes me happy.
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