Thanksgiving Wings & Mashed Potato Poutine

I'm on my own for Thanksgiving again this year - working over the weekend - which meant declining two Thanksgivings outside the city. But that's ok because it's also nice to spend some time solo, and cooking. A few years ago I did the same and I made a Turkey wing. I felt I would do something similar but I wanted actual wings . . . but what if I made them Thanksgiving style? What did that mean?

When I think of T-Day, I think turkey obviously, but the other flavour of this holiday for me is stuffing. Stove Top stuffing to be specific. So what if I combined that into a chicken wing breading?

Here are my ingredients:

• 7 Chicken Wings (fresh, split)
• Salt & Pepper
• Cajun Seasoning
• 1 Egg
• about 1/4 package of stuffing (Turkey flavour)
• flour 

I prepared my breading station.

The stuffing mix is basically breadcrumbs and seasoning. Seemed like a natural breading. But would it work?

1. Pack wings in flour/seasonings on wings to give egg wash something to stick to and give some underlying flavour.
2. Dip dusted wing in beated egg.
3. Roll said wing in dry stuffing mixture. Coat well.

Well that looked like it was going to be a big crunchy wings. If it works. PS: those are some jumbo wings even before the breading. I got them from St Lawrence Market. Awesome fresh jumbo wings.

I put the 7 wings on parchment paper and baked them in the oven at 450 degrees for 40 minutes, turning once. I baked them because a) I thought deep frying might burn the bread and b) You roast a turkey in the oven right? Well these should be roasted then.

I gotta say, the smell in the house was roasted poultry and stuffing good. They wings came out and they were lighter in colour than I expected, but the crispy coating looked good. The breading actually stuck on there too!

I like my wings with spice, or at the very least some sort of bold flavour - so I feared that the stuffing flavoured wing (even with some Cajun seasoning) might have been a bit boring. So I made a sauce.

Now I didn't have cranberry sauce, which I thought would be the best accompanyment for this wing. Instead I looked to a pepper jelly sauce, that I have experimented with before (but haven't yet logged on the blog). It's simple; those three ingredients boiled down. The bottle on the right is Third Degree Sauce.

This sauce is sweet, tangy, and zingy with heat. The pepper jelly is my secret ingredient for a wing sauce. Guess the secret is out. Dang.

I decided the wings should be drizzled with sauce and not tossed - partly as to not soggify the wings, but also to make sure the breading stayed on.

Guess what I found at the grocery store? EGG NOG!!!! I can't get enough of this stuff. And for my Egg Nog Project - the Irresistible brand is good - creamy and eggy. Mmmmm.

So at St Lawrence market I picked up some cheese curds. I bought some potatoes and decided I would make poutine. But I got lazy to make fries, and decided to experiment and make Mashed Potato Poutine.

The ingredients above are almost too similar in colour to tell apart.

I used a St Hubert poutine gravy packet - this was some good gravy! Poured over the hot mashed potatoes and the cold cheese.

Now that's a Feast for 1. I also forgot a salad I made and was in the fridge. Oh well, it will go over well with leftovers . . .

The colour palate of the meal was very autumn-like but without the salad, lacked and greenery. But dang it was a good meal.

The mashed potato poutine was a hit. Good potatos, warm soothing gravy. The only complaint was the curds weren't that squeeky, and not all of it melted because I put them on cold.

The Thanksgiving Wings worked out pretty well too.

Structurely they held up really well. The Stove-Top breading clung on well, and the drizzled stinger sauce was just right. Actually, more sauce would have been better. I expected a stronger flavour from the stuffing, but it was kind of mild. But the stinger sauce really kicked these wings up. Sweet and stingy.

These wings truly recreated the experience of a Thanksgiving Meal. 

And as I said the last time:

I am thankful for family

I am thankful for friends

I am thankful for my job and my coworkers

I am thankful for my health

I am thankful for chicken wings

I am thankful for the wing nation and for those of you that read the blog.

Happy Thanksgiving!