Chicken Wings - how many joints?


 
Gary London

Gary London

TVWBB Super Fan
I prefer to cook and eat chicken wings with all three joints in place.
I know there is hardly anything to eat on the tip and they tend to burn but I don't see the point in cutting the wings up.

Is that unusual?
 
nope. not unusual at all.
I do, however, cut the tips off and give them to my brother-in-law.
He makes stock from those and other parts.
 
Jim Lampe said:
nope. not unusual at all.
I do, however, cut the tips off and give them to my brother-in-law.
He makes stock from those and other parts.
Click to expand...

+1 on this. I snip the tips and throw them into a ziploc bag in the freezer. When I spatchcock a chicken, the backbones go in there as well and when the bag fills up, I get a gallon or so of really good stock from it (with some onions, carrots, garlic, and seasoning). There's really no meat on them, but there is fat, and fat is flavor.
 
I'm with Chad, trim, freeze and store until you have a couple of backs and a bunch of wingtips. I will often throw them all in the oven at 400 to brown things up a bit before making stock, sometimes I just pitch the whole kit and kaboodle in and simmer if for an hour or so, remove bones and vegetables, return to heat, reduce by half, cool, de fat, pour into an ice cube tray and you end up with roughly 1/4 cup cubes of stock!
 
I'm a snipper-offer here too Gary. Those pesky tips just take up room.

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Good tip, pun intended, from Jim/Chad/Tim keeping them for making stock. I've just picked all the meat out of a load of wings I did last night, to make chicken fried rice, and will keep the bones to make a nice stock for soup.
 
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OK, I'm starting to sway towards 2 joints and going tipless. I like the idea of saving them for chicken stock. The wife (of Italian heritage) occasionally does a homemade ravioli in brodo (Enrico will know) so I'll save them for her.
 
Dwain. I had about 40lbs of different woods delivered a week ago. They came in big chunks & needed to be cut up.

I decided to make up a bag of mixed chunks for future cooking, Orange, Maple, Apple, Cherry & Olive. I marked each piece with a sharpie so I know which is which, OL=Olive. ;)
 
I'm a whole wing guy, that's how you usually get wings when buying an order of fried or broasted chicken.
I love gnawing on them crusty tips.:)

Tim
 
I usually buy mine fresh & cut already - I used to find it a hassle or difficult to cut into drumettes & wingettes, but it's easy now (heavier duty chef knife & a little practice----and not caring so much how perfect they come out). I cut them like that & discard the tips, but I like the idea of saving them for stock. Maybe I'll try it another way next time :)
 
1+ for whole wings. If the store only has party wings, I need to make another stop: Booo!
The tip/nib serves two critical rolls in my book:
1) A handle during cooking/turning and saucing.
2) Built-in done meter - When that nib easily tears away while flipping, it's time to set your sauce.

BTW, try sometime a set sauce with 50/50 red jalapeno pepper jelly and a simple bbq sauce (read: unflavored - no mango, raspberry silliness)
 
Tried a tipless batch at the weekend. Even put the tips in the freezer for future stock, but.....

....it's just not the same. I love a crispy, burnt tip.

I admit to being a tips and butt man.
 
It seems hard to find anything but the 'whole' wing around here anymore. I cut them into thirds: tips, drummettes, and the 'forearm'. Tips go into the freezer collection and get added to stock when I make it. As for the other pieces, I know some people have their preference. I like both, but tend to go for the 'forearm' with the two bones.
 
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