After a whole week of winter, it has suddenly become spring in the Netherlands. The sun is shining, and even if the temperature is not yet there, we are ready for the summer. During a recipe making session, we grilled a stack of chicken wings. As far as we are concerned, chicken wings are the go-to snack for any occasion.
You can always make us, or our guests, happy with a plate of delicious grilled chicken wings. And they are so easy to make that there is really no reason not to. After smoking, we provided these chicken wings with an excellent orange juice and sambal sauce. Spicy but less than you would expect.
Sambal is an Indonesian hot sauce or paste, that’s made of chilli peppers and lots of other ingredients like garlic, shrimp paste and palm sugar. You could make it yourself, but maybe you can find it at your deli.
We season the chicken wings lightly with salt, garlic granulate and chilli flakes. That’s all. Most flavours come from the sauce.
The orange juice and sambal sauce must be boiled down. And because we had some space in the KJ Classic, we put the pan with the sauce in the middle of the grates. This way, the sauce can thicken, and it may also pick up some smoke.
This time we also used the SlōRoller. This is an accessory that comes as standard with the Classic 3 and transforms the Kamado Joe into the perfect smoker. The Joe is usually very stable, but the SlōRoller gives you an even heat without the usual heat spots on the edges of the kettle where the heat passes the plate setter.
After about an hour on 150°C (302F), the chicken wings are ready. It’s that easy. The core temperature is then around 85°C (185F). This seems high but is perfect for chicken wings. The meat is then very tender because the connective tissue has broken down, and you can almost suck the meat off the bone. As far as we are concerned, this is how chicken wings should be. The sauce hadn’t boiled down enough, so we heated it on the stove for the last couple of minutes.
We remove the lid from the SlōRoller so that the temperature rises. Then we put the chicken wings in the sauce and back on the grates, then grill them for a while so that the sauce becomes nice and sticky.
Serve the chicken wings with some orange wedges. Make sure you grab one yourself immediately because otherwise, they will be gone, and you have to make more. But that’s no problem, of course.
Ingredients
- 1 kilo of chicken wings
- olive oil
- 2 tsp coarse salt
- 1 tsp garlic granulate
- 1/2 tsp chilli flakes
For the sauce
- 200 ml of orange juice
- 100 ml of water
- 100 grams of honey
- 50 grams of sambal manis
Instructions
- Prepare your grill for an indirect heat of about 150°C (302F).
- Pour some olive oil over the chicken wings and sprinkle with the salt, garlic granules and chilli flakes.
- Place the chicken wings on the cool side of the grates and close the lid.
- Pour the ingredients for the sauce into a pan and let it reduce gently until the sauce sticks to the back of a spoon.
- When the chicken wings have a core temperature of 85°C (185F) in about 45 minutes to an hour, please put them in the sauce and grill them briefly over direct heat.
