Nat’l Chicken Wing Day – With Drumsticks

All these damned “National <this> day” declarations really mess with a blogger’s blog. As I’m doing my usual scroll of everyone’s delicious grill additions, I start seeing “National Chicken Wing Day” for none other than a Forensic Friday. Well shit, I don’t have any chicken wings (Ain’t taking out a second mortgage). Little do y’all know, we’re doing another “4N6BBQ Presents…” on Sunday, but that doesn’t cut it. I have about 2 months of saved posts lined up.

But no. July 29 is Chicken Wing Day apparently. Let’s do a broke ass chicken wing that’s not even a wing. I apologize for the typos and oversight (Zach). I cooked this and typed it up yesterday. Not my style, especially 2 years into this blog thing. Adapt and overcome, right? Want wings but can’t afford them? Let’s butterfly a chicken drumstick. Let’s do it!

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Recipe

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The Prep Table

This was mixed up last weekend. I had a serious lack of the ever-popular ForensicBBQ line of seasonings. If you’ve been around for a little while, you know I got my Meaty Bits Beef Rub locked down. You know I got the Fine Swine Pork Rub locked down. I’m happy to announce that “Better Feather Bird Rub” (pending MrsForensicBBQ’s name approval) has been officially stamped as ForensicBBQ approved.

I found these wood jar toppers and love ’em – so that’s our display. I haven’t specialized the Cajun and Taco blends yet – but it’s coming. Anyway, we’re obviously going BFBR for this one.

Was hoping to do a special post for the ever-popular “The Way Hot Sauce Co – Cow Dog? Wing Sauce” – but it’s happening today. A little backstory, I sent FamilyBBQ to find this at a local spot, and they didn’t have it – so I humbly requested them get me that Smokey’s Sauce. I ordered up a bottle from their site, and FamilyBBQ had procured a second bottle for me. Determination isn’t lost in this family.

I get it. It’s not a chicken wing. But we’re going to make it, cook it, and eat it like a chicken wing. How? We’re going to butterfly these bastards, cook ’em hot, sauce ’em and eat ’em. After I freed them from their Costco packaging, I gave ’em a rinse.. patted ’em dry and let it set for about 5 minutes. Gave ’em another pat, and then dusted with some baking powder. We want that skin dry so it’s a pleasant bite (Read on, my friends – it was a VERY pleasant bite).

After they’re dusted – put ’em naked in the fridge for at least an hour. This dries them out even more, ain’t a bad thing. Remember, I’m doing this cook on a Thursday night.. Still in my running attire, and hoping to get y’all a decent product before it goes live in the morning. Dinner time was way later than I like (8:30ish).

After we let ’em relax a bit in the fridge, pulled them out and let ’em relax on the counter for about 30 minutes. Equalization of temperature is what I was going for more than a “room temp” goal like I do for beef. I gave each bird leg another pat of the paper towel and it was time for the trim. Find the meaty part of the leg and cut lengthwise along the bone. Follow the blade along the bone until she’s spreads out. I’ve seen some awful hack jobs on YouTube – sure, it’s a cheaper chicken product, but treat it like you want to eat it. When she lays flat, you know you did good. Make sure the skin is spread evenly around the meat and let’s get to seasoning.

Heavy dose applied of that Better Feather Bird Rub and let it settle for another 10-20 minutes or so on the counter before throwing it on the RecTeq. I fired her up to 275 and let it cook until minimum 170F internal. Let’s see how that looks

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The Process

Butterflied leg kinda looking a bit like a wing, no? We’re going to eat it as such. We’re going to grab that bone, and eat that beautiful butterflied dark meat. Busy body MrsForensicBBQ was keeping me company in the garage while I was temp checking this thing. I had the GrillGrates on the side in case I needed a flash of heat – but I didn’t end up using them.

I channeled my inner Jess Pryles for this one – Just Keep Flipping. I didn’t have a reason one way or the other – I just wanted a beautiful evenly cooked bird to feast on. Looking at the time stamps on my phone, The seasoning pics happened at 7pm and the removal happened at about 8:45pm. All in all, a pretty quick cook time low (ish) temp chicken legs. These were all at least 170F and it was time to sauce.

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The Result

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Love the crew over at The Way Hot Sauce Co. Give them some love if you’re looking for some legit sauces. I saw they started to advertise this one and had to jump in head first. If you haven’t seen my 4N6BBQ Presents post featuring their sauces – Now’s the chance: A Way Hot Wednesday

Our “wings” are done, so I dumped a pile of our hot sauce in our metal bowl and threw them fresh-off-the-grill wings in there. Gave it a heavy toss, threw some more sauce in there, tossed some more. Making sure we had a solid coat all around. I plated them up to give you a picture.

And then I started eating. Without taking the picture.

I salvaged it though. That left drum is FIRE ?. You see the orange from that sauce combined delightfully with my seasoning blend on there. Hey, let me tell you.. don’t discount the discounted chicken drumstick. It’s a dark meat, so it has more flavor (sorry all you white meat fans). I filet’d it out so it acted like a wing, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t eat it like a wing. Skin was money. Sauce was good, seasoning was outstanding. Give yourselves a try at what I call the “poor man’s chicken wing”. Poor because it’s cheaper than actual chicken wings – definitely not poor on flavor.

Hope y’all got something out of this extremely rushed post – to appease the masses on National Chicken Wing Day. Not using chicken wings ?

Hey – we’ve received a few requests for our FREE stickers – as you’ve seen in our SHOP. While we’re not in a position to actually sell anything, we’re always happy to give you a sticker or two. We’re actually running a bit low (definitely not a complaint – we love your support) – but we’d also love to get your stickers in return!

And as always – sign up for our e-mails below!

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The Recipe