On a recent trip to Buffalo, New York state to see a potential new equipment supplier, I spent about 48 hours there eating pretty much nothing but Buffalo wings. What did I learn from the experience?  

1 - Buffalo wings aren't made from Buffalo, they're made of Chicken. It turns out that Buffaloes can't even fly. 

2 - They were only invented in 1964. Until then we were all apparently quite happy using chicken wings for stocks or soups, nobody thought to deep-fry them and drench them in hot sauce. The world of fast food has never been the same since.

3 - There are no Buffaloes in Buffalo.

4 – Eating Buffalo wings 3 times a day really puts you off Buffalo wings for a while  

Buffalo is a former industrial, working class city with lots of different nationalities living there and the food reflects that. It's famous for its unique twist on pizza and 'beef on weck' sandwiches - slices of rare roast beef and dill pickles in a caraway seed bun, but the greatest of them all - the Buffalo wing seems to have been a bit of an accident.

The story goes that the owner of the Anchor bar near the city centre needed to find a snack to serve to a rowdy group of late night drinkers and the only thing in the kitchen was chicken wings (which were due to be used in a stock pot). The owner's mother deep-fried them and coated them in hot sauce and a sensation was born. The bar is now a major attraction for the city and the walls are covered with signed photos of D list celebrity customers who’ve travelled from far and wide to experience the real thing.

They’re always served with sticks of celery and/or carrots plus a bleu (that's not misprint) cheese dip - maybe the French spelling makes it sound more sophisticated...

The wings are simply deep-fried with no coating or batter so you get all those nice bubbly crispy chicken skin bits to nibble on the ends of the bones and the cooked wings are nice and dry on the outside, moist and tender inside. At the Anchor bar they’re then gilded with the lightest coating of sauce (mild, medium, hot or suicidal which is actually pretty tame, this is America after all!). The sauces are fairly thin and all have a sharp tang of vinegar which helps to cut through all the fat. I guess they would have been made originally from Tabasco or a similar type hot sauce where there’s lots of heat from a cayenne type chilli pepper but none of the really pungent dried chilli flavour you’d get from Mexican or Indian chillies.

There’s another serious contender for local Buffalo wing supremacy - Duff's Famous Wings which used to be a cocktail lounge but is now a mini chain specialising in wings with sauces that go from hot to suicidal all the way up to the inevitable death sauce heat level.

To be honest, despite many locals claiming Duff’s is best, the wings sitting in a pool of vinegary hot sauce was too much for me - Anchor bar every time where their crispy wings, delicately brushed with sauce are really the high art of fast food!

Our Buffalo wings

We gave these wings a go in our kitchen when I got back – the key thing is the sauce which needs to be rich and sharp with just enough cayenne-type heat to cut through the fat. Here’s how we made it...

Ingredients

1kg chicken wings

1 tbsp tomato puree 

1 tsp salt

75ml water

3 tbsp vinegar

1 tbsp oil + lots more for deep frying

Spices

2 tsp red pepper flakes

¼ tsp Birdseye chillies

½ tsp Cayenne pepper

¼ tsp garlic powder  

Method

Deep fry the chicken wings in plenty of oil until thoroughly golden brown and crispy (you can also dust them with flour and bake in a very hot oven which also worked fine despite what they say in Buffalo about the need for deep frying!).

Blend all the other ingredients up to make a smooth sauce, add a splash of water if it needs it to make a thin slightly sharp and hot sauce.

Serve the fried wings with a thin coating of hot sauce and celery/carrot wedges with a blue cheese dip on the side.