Sous Vide Chicken Wings

By gbvampy1

CAN USE LEGS This was a super successful experiment in sous vide cooking. I know, most people do not have a home sous vide, but I think everyone should get one (see my post about counter-top sous vide here).
When bouncing this idea off of fellow foodie friends and professional cooks, the general consensus was, ‘ewww’ as in, the wings would be slimy and gelatinous. Well, I am happy (and a little smug) to say that they were all WRONG! These were some of the best, most tender, most flavourful wings I have ever eaten.
They did require a quick broil at the end to crisp up the skin (or you could shallow-fry), but the end result was a fantastically flavour infused wing.
Here I did four flavours, but you could easily do only one or two, but I was really trying to experiment with how well the wings would absorb the flavour.
One of the sauces below, the Aji Amarillo is made from a pepper very popular in Peru. It’s a sunny orange-ish-yellow with a medium heat and a citrusy scent. I am absolutely obsessed with them. Aji Amarillo can be found frozen at most Latin markets, I get mine at Nostalgia Latin Market. If you cannot find the frozen peppers, you can always substitute it for Aji Amarillo paste, which is almost equal to the real thing.
 
I started with 40 split wings, and each of the following sauce recipes is for 10 wings.

Ingredients

• Honey Garlic Sauce
• Ingredients
• 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1/2 inch nub of ginger, chopped
• 2 tablespoons of honey
• 1 tablespoon of soy sauce
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Method
• Combine all ingredients together
• Reserve 1 tablespoon of mixture for tossing
• Aji Amarillo Sauce
• Ingredients
• 3 Aji Amarillo peppers, seeded and roughly chopped (or 3-4 tablespoons of Aji Amarillo paste)
• 1/2 white onion, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 2 tablespoons white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon of olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Method
• In a pan, sauté the peppers, onion and garlic over medium heat, until the onions are translucent and the peppers softened. (If using the paste, do not include it in this step).
• Transfer mixture into a blender, add in vinegar, salt, pepper (and paste if using) and blend until smooth.
• Reserve 2 tablespoons of mixture for tossing.
• New York Butter Sauce
• Ingredients
• 4 tablespoons of hot sauce (I used classic Franks)
• 2 tablespoons of butter
• Method
• Not much to this one, it will be combined in the vac-pac bags.
• Save 1 tablespoon of hot sauce for tossing.
• Honey Sriracha
• 1/4 C sriracha
• 2 T butter
• 2 T Honey
• Mix well add to bag. When done boil sauce and coat wings

Preparation

Step 1

Wings
Now it's time to sous vide these bad boys.
Set the temperature of you sous vide to 160F
Create 4 vacuum seal bags, one for each of the flavours of wing.
 In each bag, place the chicken wings along the bottom and pour the designated sauce over the wings. Vacuum seal.

Once the sous vide has reached the desired temperature place all four bags in and let cook for 4 hours.
Just before the 4-hour mark, heat broiler to 500F and line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment.
Carefully remove each bag from the water bath, cut open and drain excess liquid.
Arrange wings on the baking sheet and broil for 10-15 minutes, flipping once half way through.
Remove from oven and toss each wing the their remaining sauce.
Serve with blue cheese dip (I like this recipe) and veggies!