Buffalo wings with blue cheese dip and celery

This little number is a 'Friday night with a movie' favourite. For that reason I make no apologies for the fact that you will need to purchase a bottle of Frank's Hot Sauce (Sainsburys stock it).

I first had buffalo wings in a bar in Toronto whilst on my gap year.  I did not have ID so whilst everyone else drank margarita slush puppies I acquainted myself with the menu.

You will need

For the wings

1 pack (around 800g) of chicken wings.

For the Dressing

1/2 bottle Frank's hot sauce
30g (or a heaped tablespoon) of butter
1 sprinkling (to taste) of caster sugar

For the Dip

50g or so (around third of a pack) of soft blue cheese -I think St Agur works well
1/2 small tub of sour cream
A tablespoon of mayonnaise
1 small garlic clove crushed
a scant teaspoon of white wine vinegar

Left over dip can be loosened with a bit of milk and used as a salad dressing.

And lots of celery peeled with your veggie peeler and cut into batons



Now, Before we get going we need to have a chat.  800g of chicken wings will seem like alot and you will be really tempted (as I was the first time) to only cook half of them.  DON'T!  You will eat almost all of them in one sitting and the left-overs are awfully nice to find when grazing on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

Method

Cut off the scrawny wing tip of each chicken piece with a sharp sturdy knife, rolling your eyes demonically and yelling out "yaaa HA!" with each dissection if you must.

Tip the wings onto non-stick baking sheet and bake at 200 for about an hour turning once or twice.  They may take less time they may take more - it really depends on relative plumpness.  Whatever, I like them really crispy and that takes time. Tip into a large bowl leaving behind the fat, dress with the hot sauce and serve with the dip and celery.

For the dressing just heat up the remaining chicken ingredients in a small pan until the sugar has dissolved.

For the blue cheese dip just mix the ingredients well.

You can thank me later.