Baked Wings for Two Moods

Hers and His Wings

It was brought to my attention that my blog has been somewhat lame lately - not a whole lot going on in the "food blog" while the "creative" blog has been getting daily attention with the "Photo a Day" challenge and all. Well...here you are! A new recipe to try!

What do you do when one person is in the mood for hot wings and the other is in the mood for Asian? Easy. Bake one batch of wings and make two sauces. Wings for two!

One night last week I was desperate for Tupelo Honey Hot Wings and already had the sauce made - so I asked the hubs if that sounded good and he said something like "...I kinda want our Asian wings instead." I thought about it for a second and it seemed like it could be a no brainer just to make two difference style wings.

So I did.

I marinated my wings (I prefer the flats) in some salt/pepper/garlic and some beer.

The hubs? I marinated his wings (he prefers the drumsticks) in store-bought Soy Ginger dressing and whipped up some Asian marinade*. The recipe sounds kind of odd but you have to trust me on it: 

Brown Sugar Soy Marinade
1 Cup Brown Sugar
6 Tablespoons Dijon mustard
¼ cup soy sauce
1 ½ tablespoons rice wine vinegar

Mix it all together (I use a whisk) and use as you see fit. In this case: wings.

Once the wings marinated for a bit (about an hour) I wiped them clean and tossed the Asian wings in a little bit of the brown sugar/soy sauce and set some aside for basting. The rest of the sauce was placed in a squeeze bottle for another time.

Did the same with the flats, only I tossed them in hot sauce.

I put them all on a grate that was placed in a cookie sheet (which I covered in foil to make for an easy clean up).

Set oven to 450. Bake wings for roughly 25 minutes - checking the Asian wings 3 times to baste with some sauce. During the last "check" sprinkle some sesame seeds on the wings and boom! Life is good!

Finally - once wings are baked - toss the hot ones in some hot sauce and serve with carrots/celery and blue cheese dressing. Asian? Served in this case, with rice.

Taste of Asia

Taste of Tupelo

* This marinade is exceptional and versatile. I've used it on grilled Salmon, pork tenderloin and chicken. I've marinated meat in it, basted meat with it and drizzled it over the final product (as well as over rice and green beans). It's that good. It came to me by way of my restaurant days at the now-defunct CopaCafe in Lexington, MA. For some extra zip feel free to add a touch of fresh grated ginger (but a little goes a long way!)