Smoked - Sous Vide Wings or Drumsticks

Smoked drumsticks with a cold Belgian brew 

Smoked wings crisped up in a cast iron pan.

• Chicken wings, drumsticks or even thighs
• Sea salt

Prep Instructions

If you have some of our pre-smoked sous chef chicken, skip this section... your food is almost ready to serve! 

1. Lightly salt the chicken
2. Place wings in your smoker and set to 180 degrees at high smoke.
3. Smoke for 2-3 hours
4. Vacuum seal the chicken (or seal in a ziplock bag and get as much air out as you can)
5. Sous Vide at 170 degrees for 10 hours
6. If needed, refrigerate or freeze until ready to serve

Note: If you don't have a sous vide, you can cook in a crockpot on low or in a pot filled with hot water in an oven set to 170-180 degrees. 

Finish Instructions

Here is where to start if you received our pre-smoked chicken with your delivery.

1. Gently Warm: Leave package sealed and place into a sink or pan with hot tap water. Run hot water slowly over the chicken.  The idea here is to make sure the fat that has released from the slow cooking is fully melted so your chicken is easy to pull out of the package without shredding.  The chicken is very tender, so be delicate when you pull them out of the package.  If the chicken was in your refrigerator overnight, this will probably only take about 10 minutes.  If you are starting from frozen, plan on maybe 30 minutes.  
2. Crisp: Just before serving, crip up the skin on a grill, via broiling or pan searing.  The wings should easily separate at the joint now if you'd like to separate the drummies to serve.  If searing in a pan, be sure to first liberally add butter, coconut oil, bacon fat or other fat to the pan so they crisp up nicely.  You want a hot pan to quickly crips the skin, the meat is already cooked, so don't worry about that part. 
3. Add finishing salt or your favorite sauce

Variations

Really these don't need much of anything besides perhaps some finishing salt to taste and a nice cold beer.  Some sauerkraut and a nice summer melon would be great sides. 

However, any sauce you enjoy would work, just add after crisping up the skin.  Ideas include

• Garlic lime summer sauce 
• Aioli or Hollandaise
• Buffalo BBQ sauce

I also like the idea of making more of a fried chicken style by adding a breading.

Any breading works, just mix in some paprika, garlic powder, pepper with a dash of salt into a cup of flour... then dredge the chicken into the breading and fry in a pan with plenty of fat:

Make sure the package is still vacuum sealed and then warm chicken in hot tap water, a small bit of running water speeds things along nicely.... about 10 min for a thawed package. If seal is broken, put in another bag to warm. 

If crisping up in a pan, be sure to melt enough fat -- bacon fat is a great idea! 

Use fairly high heat to crisp the skin whether you are using a stovetop, grill or broiler.