Sous Vide chicken wings from MC at home

Hello,
I've been experimenting with cooking the chicken wings sous vide, and then flash frying them before tossing in the sauce, the recipe doesn't call for any breading before the frying, and the wings don't come out as crispy as they should. I've tried pan frying (like the book calls) and deep frying, with a little wondra. Any suggestions on how to make them nice and crispy?

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Brendan_Lee_56950

How are you drying them post SV and pre-fry? I believe @chris mentioned it in a previous post somewhere that chicken skin holds a ton of moisture so you may have to either throw them in the freezer for 10 minutes before frying at a higher temp or liquid nitrogen if you have it.

I've found that for things like fried chicken I have the best results letting them dry on a rack in a fridge for a few hours before frying.

michaeltran

The dryer you get it, the crisper it will be. However, with sous vide, I don't think you can get skin "really" crispy even if you dry it out and introduce a starch like flour, corn, or sweet potato. I've seen a lot of recipes ask for removing the skin before the sous vide process but that's not really an option for wings.

Brendan_Lee_56950

You should check this out too seriouseats.com/2012/01/the-food-lab-how-to-make-best-buffalo-wings-fry-again-ultimate-crispy-deep-fried-buffalo-wings.html

Lester_Almanzar_Paiewonsky_66197

Thanks Michael and Brendan Lee. I pat the skin dry with paper towels pre and post SV and once again pre-fry. I'll try drying on a rack for a while in the fridge or freezer, and will work a starch into the mix.

james.denissen

I've used that Serious Eats method several times with great success. The best part is you can confit a TON of wings and throw them in the freezer. Just fry up a batch whenever the urge strikes.

Jack_Mayer_85396

@Brendan beat me to the punch on the cite to the Serious Eats article. I too recommend it!

Grace_95227

Ehmergerd - that seriouseat site is dangerous

Chris_Young_80640

I agree that Kenji's method works really well. It's very much in the style of traditional Pekin duck. But you can make even better by laying the wings out overnight in your fridge on a rack of some sort. Letting the skin start to dry before you do the first frying with help the final result puff up extra crisp.

Brendan_Lee_56950

I remember watching my grandma (who's chinese) blanch her duck/chicken in boiling water for like 5 minutes and then letting it hang in the fridge overnight before cooking and it makes a lot of sense to me now.

michaeltran

I remember watching my grandma (who's chinese) blanch her duck/chicken in boiling water for like 5 minutes and then letting it hang in the fridge overnight before cooking and it makes a lot of sense to me now.

Reminds me of Heston Blumenthal's "In Search of Perfection" episode on Peking Duck. He went through a lot of methods to crisp skin including this.

Chris_Young_80640

@Michael — I did the development for that dish with Heston. We tried way, way more crazy things in search of crisp skin than you would ever imagine. The list of failures could have been its own book.

Brendan_Lee_56950

@chris do you find that after all the experimentation you come back to an adaptation of a long standing method in most cases?

Chris_Young_80640

@Brendan_Lee — Not necessarily. How we roast a chicken at ChefSteps, for example, borrows ideas from Pekin duck, but has some unique and important improvements that came about from our experimentation.

There is also the question of how much work you want to put in. The complete Pekin Duck dish from Heston's Perfection series is an amazing meal. I'm biased, but I have never had a better experience eating duck. But it is a lot of work—It's the kind of dish that makes great restaurants worth going to.

Another example is how we grind meat for our burgers. This was another development from The Fat Duck Experimental Kitchen. The concept was to line the strands of ground meat up in the same direction, lengthwise into a cylinder, and then cutting the burgers from that cylinder of meat. By creating a "grain" to the burger, it would just crumble apart in your mouth as you bit down. This makes the burger seem remarkably tender and juicy. Definitely not the longstanding approach to making a burger patty.

michaeltran

@Michael — I did the development for that dish with Heston. We tried way, way more crazy things in search of crisp skin than you would ever imagine. The list of failures could have been its own book.

@Chris - that's pretty awesome. You guys do the type of work I dream of doing, so jealous!

Brendan_Lee_56950

@chris I love that burger method. I keep forgetting to get a diameter of pipe to make the mould but I definitely have had success keeping the burgers fairly close with the grain.

I agree about the work and time though. My friends and wife laugh at how much time I spend making some things but I figure if there's a method that produces a superior outcome why settle.

Mason_Perry_34060

Looks like I better get some wings for game day

VineLover_1022617

I have a great idea for a meal for lunch, and maybe for a romantic dinner. It is also a great meal for the whole family.

Sous Vide Recipes Chicken

I advise you to try.

Steps

Step 1

Fill a large stock pot with water, attach your sous vide to the pot and set your sous vide to 145ºF. You want to make sure you can fully submerge your chicken breast in the water.

Step 2

Then, season chicken breast with salt and pepper and place into a vacuum seal bag. A Ziplock will work fine too!

....