Comfort Food: Crispy Slow-cooked Chicken Wings

‘Round this hemisphere, winter has been setting in. With the nights getting long and the air turning chilly, thoughts in my house turn to comfort food. Things that are warming, wholesome, filling and delicious enough to make up for an inhospitable outside.
Oh, and in a house with one broke person and one gluten-free, comfort food’s gotta be edible by everyone- because what’s worse than getting in to a warm home on a cold night and not being able to tuck in?- and not break the bank. Without further ado, then: Crispy Slow-Cooked Chicken Wings. Melt-in-your-mouth delicious. Gluten-free. Not too pricey. Win!

Ingredients

• A packet of chicken wings. Thighs are good too, if you prefer them.
• Stock- check to make sure these are gluten-free, if that’s something you need. I normally use chicken or vegetable cubes for this- but fresh stock is always incredible if you can get it.
• Chopped garlic to taste. I love garlic, so I use at least 4-5 cloves.
• Chopped ginger to taste. Again, I love ginger so I go for a good 2-3 square inches of the stuff.
• Tamari soy sauce. If you don’t need to avoid gluten, by all means use regular soy!
• Sweet chilli sauce.
• A little bit of oil. I tend to have olive oil lying around, so I use it for most things. I’ll bet that sesame oil would be amazing for this, though.

Method

Finely chop or grate the ginger and garlic. Add them to a pan with a smallish dollop of oil. Fry them over a very, very low heat for a couple of minutes, stirring all the time, until they soften.
Add a crumbled stock cube, a few tablespoons of soy sauce and of sweet chilli sauce, and the chicken wings to the pan. Mix them around until the chicken wings are well covered with the sauce. Add enough boiling water to cover everything.
Bring everything to the boil, then cover and reduce to a very gentle simmer. Simmer for as long as you can stand it. It’s gonna start smelling really yummy after not very long, but if you can manage to leave it for an hour or two, I promise you won’t regret it. Stir it every so often- every 15 minutes or so should be fine.

When you truly can’t deal with the deliciousness anymore, distract yourself by preparing things to go with your chicken wings. I love them with rice, peas and roasted root veggies like carrots, parsnips and Jerusalem artichokes. They’d probably be almost painfully yummy with mashed spuds as well.

Heat up your grill. (Now, I am aware that what Americans call a grill is not what I’d describe that way. Here in Ireland, a grill is something that gives intense, non-contact heat from above. It’s normally a setting in your oven. So if you’re American, turn on the thing that turns the heat at the top of your oven on. And then leave me a comment letting me know what you call the dam thing. If you’re from somewhere that Proper English is spoken, just get the grill on.)

1. 

Take the chicken wings out of the delicious liquid- and oh yes you are gonna be reserving that tasty chicken juice- place them in a baking dish, and pop them under the grill. Keep an eye on them! They’ll go crispy within minutes. Turn them around and repeat.
Fill up your plates with beds of delicious rice (or mashed potatoes) and veggies. Put the chicken wings on top. Ladle some delicious, delicious juice on top of them. Eat amazing chicken wings while falling hopelessly in love with your tastebuds.
Marvel at how something so easy can be so tasty. Leave me comments telling me all about it.

One little hint: make more of these than you need. They are every bit as ludicrously tasty heated up the next day.