What's on the Grill #224: Wings & Peppers

This meal was a little bit leftovers, a little bit new and a whole lot of bad.  I "try" to eat fairly healthy...and by healthy I mean non-processed food.  Although every once in a while, I get the craving for something bad and when I think completely unhealthy, the Asian Zing wing sauce at Buffalo Wild Wings oddly appears.

It's sticky sweet.  So sticky sweet, I regulate myself to eating with only one hand, so as to not "sauce-ify" my beer glass and/or phone.  This process is easy for chowing down a drummette, but requires a little nose intervention when working my way through a wing.  It's just another fun day with Mike and his self diagnosed OCD.

Outside of the eating hassle, I know the sauce is bad from a health standpoint, which is probably why I only "treat" myself once every couple months.  However to make matters worse, when I found an online recipe for the sauce which required me to dig out the Karo corn syrup, I knew I was in trouble.  For the record, the corn syrup hasn't come out of the pantry in years.  In fact, the odds are in my lifetime, I have used Karo more as the base for fake blood than an ingredient in cooking...which is a story for another day...let's just chalk it up to a creative childhood and adolescence.

Now not wanting to totally rot my soul, this meal was a twofer.  When one has pulled pork, it is a requirement to work it into every dish imaginable.  In this case, my favorite Pulled Pork Stuffed Peppers.

But first, here are the wings:

Grilled Chicken Wings with Asian Zing Sauce
Sauce from Meemo's Kitchen

12 Chicken Wings
salt and pepper

2 t cornstarch
4 t rice wine vinegar
1/2 cup corn syrup
2 T dry sherry
1 t minced peeled ginger
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 t dry crushed red pepper
2 T soy sauce
1 T asian chili-garlic sauce
1 t lemon juice

1.  In a small bowl, combine rice wine vinegar and cornstarch.  Stir to disolve.

2.  Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil over medium heat.  Reduce and simmer and until sauce thickens.

3.  Rings the wings under cold water and with a pair of scissors or a sharp knife, remove the wing tip.

It should look like this:

4.  Pat, pat, pat the wings dry.  Season with salt and pepper

5.  The wings can be grilled direct, or indirect.  Since I was grilling multiple things, I opted the indirect route.

6.  Over indirect medium heat, grill the wings about 30-35 minutes, turning once.

7.  When the wings are done, remove them from the grill and place in a large bowl.  Pour the sauce over the wings and mix well.  Serve.

As I mentioned before, this was a twofer.  Pulled Pork Stuffed Peppers are the second act of this two part heart clogging show and they are about as simple as it gets.  Cut the caps off of 3 or 4 peppers and hollow out the insides.  Mix together the pulled pork, your favorite BBQ sauce and shredded cheese (and really anything else you want: beans, herbs, small children...whatever).

Place on the grill and cook.  The Saffire's raised grill grate extension worked well for maximizing my indirect space.  Ideally, I would have had to fire up the 26 inch kettle if I were to attempt this on something other than the Saffire.

In order to keep the peppers upright, wrap aluminum foil around their base.  When the peppers start cooking, they may appear stable, but after a few minutes of heat exposure they tend to lay down on the job.

Prevent disaster and give them a safety ring.  It's what friends do.

The peppers take about 30 minutes or so to heat up.  When done, carefully remove them and serve.  They are an ultimate last minute left over.

Although I chanced fate and shaved a few years off my life by making the wings, they were really, really good.  I also figure they are about 10 times better than what I would get at BW3s.  Most importantly, at home, I can let up on my one handed wing eating rule, which is a good thing.  I can only take so much sauce dripping off my nose in public.  At home, it is just considered normal.