PC SMOKIN' STAMPEDE JUST DRUMS - Quarantine Frozen Wing Review

So I haven't done a frozen wing review in a while, which worked out because I had a box of wings in the freezer that had been there forever.

I posted on Instagram back in May of 2020 after shopping at Real Canadian Superstore that they had wings on sale. In particular, it was their Smokin' Stampede BBQ sauced wings but they had two boxes at 2 different prices: Flats only for $11.98 and Drums only for $4.94! Now normally I'm slightly more on Team Flats, but for $5, how could I pass up a box of drums?!?!

I find it interesting of all of PC's wing flavours, they only did the Smokin' Stampede as Drums or Flats. If you aren't familiar with Smokin' Stampede, it's one of President's Choice's lines of BBQ Sauces.

I actually really like this BBQ sauce. Of all the grocery store BBQ sauces, it's my fave. Particularly Beer & Chipotle. It's sweet, smoky, layered in flavour and just a hint of heat. If I make a quick and easy spicy BBQ wing, I just mix this and some hot sauce and I'm good to go. So how would the frozen version turn out?

The box is 907g and they guarantee at least 13 wings. While PC does make a Tequila Habanero version, but this is Beer & Chipotle. Cooking instructions are either doing the oven at 425 F, but I was planning on grilling them.  The ingredients weren't egregious, I mean for a frozen wing. But the 'seasoned wing' and the 'glaze' did mean there were a lot of things going on here.

Inside the box was just the bag of wings. I was shocked, as PC seems to just always add sauce packets on the side. Thank goodness.

After a year, the wings had a bit of freezer burn, but not so much that I thought there was a problem. The wings were all pretty frozen together, but after a few minutes they pulled apart not too bad.

The box said there would be a minimum of 13 wings in the box, and, well there were 13 wings in total. This begs the question, do you prefer 13 wings that weigh 900g, or a bunch of smaller wings that weig 900g? 

The bag was pretty saucy after dumping them out, but then with the seasoning and the glaze, that's a lot of liquid.

I got my grill heat up to 400 (the box says medium, but what does a box know?), and dumped the bag right on, then turned the temperature down a bit. 

These could have been decent in the oven, but really they were made for the grill.

The box said to turn them frequently. That sounded reasonable so that's what I did. With each turn the wings were getting more charred and crispy. They looked promising. 

All in all I cooked them for about 20 minutes until they looked good and ready. You have to be patient, and I didn't want to be patient.

A few got more crispier than others, but that just meant more crispy-sauced goodness.

Grilled up, they looked better in person than the beauty shot on the box!

You can cook them how you want, but I wanted them a bit charred and crispy, but still sticky with the sauce on them. I think they turned out pretty good.

The size of the wings were decent - not that big but not too small. They were more on the short side of length, but they were pretty meaty wings.

The texture on the wings was a mix of sticky and charred. With a wing so saturated in sauce there was no way the wings would develop a crispy skin. The meat was relatively tender, which I was shocked as both a frozen wing, and a wing that sat at the bottom of my freezer for over a year!

I ate one right off the grill, I couldn't wait. It was a little sweet, a little bit of spice, a little smoke, with a little tang. It didn't taste exactly like the actual bottle of sauce. That's ok in terms of flavour because the flavour is good, just don't expect it to be the same. 

WOULD I BUY IT AGAIN?

Ya, especially for $5! It was a great deal and the wings turned out better than expected. These aren't amazing wings, but for $5 they hit the spot. The texture, the flavour was all on point. I ended up having leftovers, and I added chili flakes and a bit of hot sauce to kick it up a notch. I wouldn't get these at full price, and you could make much more amazing wings from fresh using the PC Smokin' Stampede Sauce, but for a quick wing, these will do. 9/14

President's Choice

Smokin' Stampede Just Drums

https://www.presidentschoice.ca/product/pc-smokin-stampede-just-drums-gigantico-chicken-drumettes/20511422_EA

PC CRISP & CRUNCHY SPICY SOUTHERN-STYLE CHICKEN WINGS - Quarantine Frozen Wing Review

The grocery store had PC wings on sale a few months back, so I grabbed a box that had the words crunchy and spicy and thought that was the way to go.

As it turns out, I already did a review of these wings back in 2008! Things that were immediately noticeable in change was the box art, that they used to be 1kg, and that they now come with a dipping sauce. The price is still in the same target though!

Is this the longest name for a product? "Crips & Crunchy Spicy Southern-Style Chicken Wings". Not having remembered doing a review in 2008, I came at these relatively fresh in perspective. 

The ingredients on the box actually weren't bad. The chicken was seasoned, the coating was in wheat flour but not a crazy amount.  Could be worse?

I opened the plastic bag the wings came in, and they looked pretty big. Sightly frost bit, but that's on me I'm pretty sure.

Also in the box was Garlic Dip ... this is not like the usual dips (ranchy, blue cheese) so maybe this one would be worth while. Into warm water it went to thaw.

I dumped the bag out and there were 21 wings in total. The box guarantees 16, so 21 seemed like a bonus. 

I decided to toss these on the old bbq grill. I used a BBQ mat which I find helps crisp up chicken wings, or in this case, keep them crisp. 

I had the right grill on high and the middle grill on low to cook relatively indirectly. They cooked for about 10-15 minutes on one side till I flipped them over. You can see them getting golden brown and crispy here. You can also see some bacon wrapped jalapenos that I was also cooking. 

I walked away from the wings, and something bad happened. See I had the bacon wrapped jalapenos cooking on the bbq mat as well, and, well, the bacon grease pooled on the mat. Then it over flowed, and drip down into the flames. It caught fire, and woosh! We had a huge rager, which meant charred bacon, and collateral damage - badly charred wings. Woops. The wings were salvageable. The bacon, not as much.

I took the wings off and some were way to black. I still tried scraping them, but those wings were going to be burnt and bitter. Bollox.

Here was the final product: Bacon Wrapped Jalapenos with almost no bacon, and over cooked frozen breaded chicken wings. 

I mean, most were still edible. They were just a lot tougher and hard crunchy rather than lightly crunchy. That's all on me and not PC.

There's a pretty shot of them with some of the lighter ones and the Garlic dip.

The platter of the best jalapenos and wings for my wife and me. Doesn't look to shabby eh?

The size of the wings were not huge, but not tiny either. They were also pretty meaty, but there was also a fairly thick breading.  The coating was very crunchy. The meat wasn't too tender either. Again, my bad on cooking. 

I mean, they weren't pretty looking, that's for sure. Again, that's mostly on me and my grilling negligence. They didn't have much flavour to them - maybe I burnt it off? There was a bit of smoke flavour from me cooking them on the grill, but that's it.  The name says spicy but there was no spice. Even with my mistakes, I wouldn't eat these naked. They are a great vessel for saucing or dipping. 

I was hesitant to try the dip, because PC may make some decent wings, but dips are just not that good. I wish they put in an extra wing instead of the dips.

This dip wasn't that bad. It helped with the plain flavoured wings. I didn't love it either. The texture is kinda weird after thawing. Still, it's creamy and garlicky, it did what it was supposed to do, I guess. I'd rather use my own dips though.

 

Would I buy it again?

Ya probably. Not for the flavour, because it was pretty blah, but because these are a pretty good crispy canvass for sauces and dips. Disappointed in the lack of heat especially, but I can get past it. I do recommend cooking them on the grill, just never leave bacon unattended on the grill. Ever. Ever. Ever.

8.5/14

President's Choice

https://www.presidentschoice.ca/product/pc-crisp-and-crunchy-spicy-southern-style-chicken-wings/20708933_EA

LA CAGE BUFFALO CHICKEN WINGS - Quarantine Frozen Wing Review

"A must at La Cage, our Buffalo wings are spicy as hell!"

My outlook on frozen chicken wings swings all the time, especially with labeling and names. Sometimes I'm jaded and think only the worst of things, other times I'm optimistic, thinking 'this might be the one'. It's usually the former, but occasionally my patience and experimentation are rewarded. 

So while checking the grocery flyers one day I see that Costco has La Cage chicken wings on sale. Normally their wings are $19.99, but this week, they were on for $14.99. And for 1.8 kg of wings, that's not too bad a price. I went and I was a little excited; but there was still lot's to be worried about.

If you aren't familiar with La Cage, it's a line of products (in this case, chicken wings) based on the sports pub La Cage aux Sports (ie the Sports Cage) chain from Quebec (now seemingly shortened to just La Cage these days). They have a variety of flavours, but the one for sale at Costco is Buffalo.  Here is where my concerns came in. I've been to couple of La Cages, even I think the original one in Montreal. I was not a fan of the wings. Why would their frozen wings be any good?

So I like the box are - clean, simple, but still dark and edgy. The name and logo is the biggest part of the box, with four wings on a table piled up. And one garlic clove. Why is there a garlic clove? There is no garlic in Buffalo wings?

I find the back of the box a little funny. They are advertising the wings in a group party, but they are overshadowed by the other La Cage frozen foods you can buy; ribs, chicken bites, chicken burgers etc. I also like the honesty of the box: "This Package Contains Only Buffalo Chicken Wings" . But are they Buffalo wings? Really?

The second ingredient after the chicken is water. Then sauce. The water isn't part of the sauce. Water? But there's still water in the sauce. And the sauce doesn't even resemble Buffalo sauce. Here is the sauce ingredient list, and let me highlight some things that are highly questionable about a Buffalo wing sauce:

"water, vinegar, salt, sugar, modified corn starch, chickpea flour, tomato powder, corn syrup solids, palm oil, dehydrated red wine, canola oil, garlic powder, yeast extract, beet powder, onion powder, spice, natural and artificial flavours, citric acid, xanthan gum, guar gum, natural and artificial colours"

Chickpea flour? Tomato powder? Red Wine? I'm not saying that these ingredients might help make a tasty wing, but none of those things goes in Buffalo wing sauce.

As promised there are only frozen wings in the box. It's a big box and a big bag. I mean, it's 1.8kg!

There were about 35ish wings in the bag. I made two rounds of wings. One day I cooked about 17 of the wings as I usually do on parchment paper on a baking sheet. The next day I cooked the remaining 18 wings on a wire rack (more on this later).

The wings looked decent actually. They were a good size, nice colour, only a little frosting of ice from the bag. They looked slightly dusted (must be the chickpea flour), but not overly so. So even if they didn't seem to add up to be Buffalo wings, they seemed like they could be decent wings.

I cranked the over to 400 F and cooked them for about 30 minutes turning over half way. I even popped on the broiler as they recommended in the instructions. They didn't get crispy doing this, so the second time I did it by wire rack.

This was the recommended method in the instructions, but I didn't find this produced a more crispier wing at all. Actually it just created a bigger mess.

When they cooked up there was enough marinade and grease that seeped out and off of the wings, but that was to be expected. After a little trip under the broiler I did get little bubbles coming out which you can faintly see above.

Behold, my plate of wings. Actually this photo makes them almost look like deep fried Buffalo wings, but fried saucy wings they were not.

This photo you can see the tell-tale sign of baked wings, with the flat, caramelized patches of skin and sauce forging into one. The colour of this process creates patches of dark reddish-brown while the regular lighter chicken peeks around.

They were not a bad sized wing at all. Not small, but a healthy medium. They aren't that long, but a bit more girth to them. They aren't breaded, so it shows that these were pretty meaty morsels.

The skin was not crispy. This is not uncommon at all to pre-sauced wings. There's a slight crispy factor, but the skin on the wings was more gummy from the sauce. The meat was pretty tender, and these wings could be pulled apart with not much effort.

Now I ask you, do this look like a plate of Buffalo wings? No it doesn't. And it doesn't taste like it either. The flavour wasn't bad. It wasn't spicy, it wasn't rich and buttery and zingy like Buffalo wings, but it was tasty enough. It reminded me in both taste and ingredients to No Name Buffalo wings, or even the unique wings from Buffet Des Continents. It's kinda sweet, kinda not. There's a spice flavour but no spice heat. It's disappointing when they say "it's spicy as hell", and it's not, so what Hell are they referring to?

WOULD I GET THESE AGAIN?

Sure, on sale. I mean they aren't bad frozen wings, they just aren't Buffalo chicken wings. They're a decent size and have a decent flavour. The texture is on par with lots of other frozen wing products, but the meat was tender. I did buy another box later while they were still on sale and gobbled them up not long after. Because they are easy to do. Plus I just added my own sauce and it was much better. They also suggest putting them on a BBQ Grill and that would work too.

I also find it interesting that they have 5 other flavours to choose from at regular grocery stores (of course Costco only has one), but the actual menu at La Cage only has two current flavours (although this might have to do with COVID, I'm not too sure). Either way, these are worth it on sale, but I'm going to pass the rest of the time. 8/14

La Cage
cage.ca
In Grocery Stores
At Costco