Chicken Wings

By johandi

Ingredients

• 4 pounds chicken wings, cut into drumettes and flats
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1 cup of your favorite wing sauce (the classic is a half and half mixture of Frank's Hot Sauce and melted butter)
• Blue cheese dressing
• Celery sticks

Preparation

Step 1

1. Line rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil, and set rack inside. Carefully dry chicken wings with paper towels. Place 1/3 of wings in large bowl, sprinkle with 1 teaspoon baking powder and 1 teaspoon salt, and toss until thoroughly and evenly coated. Place on rack, leaving slight space between each wing. Repeat with remaining two batches of wings.
2. Place baking sheet with wings in refrigerator and allow to rest, uncovered, at least 8 hours, and up to 18 hours.
3. Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position and preheat oven to 450°F. Add chicken wings and cook for 20 minutes. Flip wings and continue to cook until crisp and golden brown, 15 to 25 minutes longer. Transfer to large bowl, add sauce, toss to thoroughly coat, and serve with blue cheese dressing and celery sticks, conspicuously shunning anyone who says that real buffalo wings must be fried.

Andrea's Notes: I made about half this recipe, I guess. I don't really know what 4lb of chicken wings looks like; I had bought a Safeway 'family pack' of chicken wings ($10). I also didn't have kosher salt and used regular. Also also: blue cheese is the devil's work, so I used Ranch dressing. Very tasty. Someone asked, in the comments section, if they smoked a lot when baked. Since I noticed that they DO, here is the solution to that, posted in the comments:

"They do smoke a little, but not too much. If you want to cut the smoking, I'd put a layer of slightly crinkled aluminum foil with holes punctured in it into the bottom of the tray (under the rack). This lets the fat drain underneath the foil, where the smoke and sputtering are better contained."

Happy wing-baking! A.