GRACE Mild JERK WINGS - QUARANTINE FROZEN WING REVIEW

This is a QFWR:

Every once and a while a familiar brand will try something different with a chicken wing theme. Lots of chip flavours do this, movie snacks will do this, even Captain Highliner will do this. But one that I was not expecting was the brand Grace to bring out their own line of frozen chicken wings.

If you are not familiar with Grace brand, this is a lot of Canadian's first encounter with Caribbean food. It's a Jamaican-food based company that has been stocking grocery stores with sauces, rubs, spices, and drinks. Usually found in the International aisle of the store, I found one of their products not on the shelves, but in the freezer.

Actually I had seen them the week before (this is back in February) advertised in the flyers but I didn't get to that grocery store; then when I did the next week, they had none, but I found them at another store. They were on sale from $14.99 down to $9.99, so I decided I had to try a box for sure. I was disappointed as the only two flavours available were Mild and Honey. So I went with Mild.


 

Grace's Facebook page is advertising these quite a bit, and even had this video. I didn't see any of this until I got the wings, but cool none the less.

I've been on a bit of a Jerk kick the last couple of months, making lots of Jerk chicken thighs and quarters, so trying some wings seemed like a good idea. I liked the packaging - fresh, fun, and professional. Sometimes Grace branded items look a little simple or basic, but this looked new and exciting.

Several things stood out from the box when I looked at it.

1) These were fully cooked, which means you can microwave them (which it says you can do, but a microwave is never a good tool for cooking a chicken wing

2) 750g - This isn't a big box of wings, and though they were on sale, they were still $10. The wings I reviewed last week were the same size and $5.

3) The ingredients have wheat and soy (when would you ever have Jerk chicken that has soy or wheat in it?). I also noticed there were "Dried chilies, Smoke flavour, Spice extracts" so this might bring some flavour, but those were at the bottom of the sauce ingredient list.

The only thing in the box is the plastic bag of frozen wings. The wings are pre-marinated in the sauce. This suggested to me that we were not getting a crispy wing, but then again, Jerk wings aren't known to be crispy.

I emptied out the box onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, my standard setup when baking any wings, frozen or not. Inside the bag there were 17 wing pieces, with 6 drummettes and 11 wingettes; clearly not equally distributed.

You could see on the wings that they had a brown marinade to them, as well as a little bit of frost. I had to pull a few apart as they had semi-fused together in the bag.

The instructions called for a very hot oven - 450F (232C) and to cook for 30 minutes, flipping once. I did so. They also said if you wanted crispy wings, leave them in for 5 minutes longer. I also did that.

They smelt like Jerk, but the all-spice (not my favourite) was very noticeable. They had leaked a little grease, but not much. I thought there would be lots, at least of the marinade leaking off but not the mat was relatively dry!

I plated these up and LJ and I had them for lunch. They don't look pretty. They didn't even really look like Jerk to me. But I was still looking forward to trying them.

The wings were mostly medium in length and height. Some were a bit smaller, some slightly bigger. Some were really meaty, others respectably meaty. The pieces were very inconsistent.

The skin on these were not crispy. I didn't know how they could be covered in sauce. Even with 5 extra minutes in the very hot oven, and on parchment paper, these were not crispy. They were tender though, with moist meat, but not all the bones pulled apart easily.

The wings weren't saucy either; they were kind of in a limbo state of baked on but slightly mushy. This texture wasn't bad; it is what it is. The big question was how did they taste?

Well, in a blind taste test I would know they were Jerk wings. You could taste the spices, the garlic, the chilies, but you could also taste the all spice, the cloves, and wheat and those are things I am not a fan of. LJ didn't really care for them and thought they were just ok, but she didn't end up eating too many.

There was just a touch of heat, which was perfect for a mild wing. For chili heads this is going to be weak, but for those that don't like spice but want to, this is a good gateway heat.

WOULD I BUY IT AGAIN?

Yes, but with a few conditions. I really wanted to try the Hot, because I feel good Jerk chicken should make you sweat while you are liking your fingers from the Jerk. So if I see these again on sale (and the store has them) I would get the Hot. If I was redoing the mild again (and the hot for that matter) I would for sure cook them on a grill. Charcoal would be best, but any grill. They are meant to be kissed by fire, not an oven, and certainly not a microwave.  7/14

Grace Foods

gracefoods.ca

The website doesn't list the frozen wings but their Facebook page does.