Cherry-Jalapeño Barbecue Wings
Doing a barbecue competition last year has had me returning to fine tuning barbecue sauces and rubs in a way that I haven't really for quite awhile. I'm trying to come up with ways to make what I turn into the judges something that will turn heads in a good way, but also not veer so far from norms that it becomes overtly challenging to identify as American barbecue. Two sauces I've made in the past have jumped to the front of the line as contenders to do this—a cherry barbecue sauce and a jalapeño barbecue. Earlier in the summer I got to thinking, what would those two taste like mashed together, so I gave it go, applied the sauce to some grilled wings, and was quite pleased with the results.
At this point, I have a base barbecue sauce recipe with a list of ingredients that I feel all need to be present to provide the full depth and balance a great tomato-based sauce should have, It's tinkering with quantities and add-ins that I'm mostly doing now-a-days, and for this sauce, I had to consider how to really deliver on both the jalapeño and cherry flavors. For both, I went with a multi-pronged approach by using the fruits themselves along with jalapeño jam and cherry preserves.
I started the sauce off by sautéing onions until they were softened and beginning to brown. I then added in jalapeño, garlic, and the spices and cooked until everything was fragarent. All the remaining ingredients went in next and the sauce was then simmered to allow everything to meld and thicken up a bit too. Finally, I gave the sauce a whirl with an immersion blender to smooth it out before transferring it to a mason jar for storage. The sauce in this recipe will make way more than what you actually need for brushing on the wings, but it stays good for quite awhile, so having extra on hand feels like a win in the end.
My focus in this recipe was the sauce, so I kept the rub pretty standard and similar to ones I've made for barbecue wings in the past. If you're new to my grilled wings recipes though, the one thing that will probably pop out as non-traditional is the baking powder. This is the ingredient that helps gives grilled, or baked, wings a textured skin, enhancing its crunch and ability to hold sauce. Even more crucial than the baking powder though is the removal of surface moisture from the chicken, which began when I patted the wings dry with paper towels before applying the rub.
The wings really dried out though after an overnight stint in the fridge. I placed the wings on a wire rack set in a baking sheet to maximize surface exposure, ensuring the wings will be pretty evenly dry all over by the time they hit the grill.
Air drying leads to the exterior of the wings cooking much faster on the grill than if they hadn't gone through that process, and that's what creates crunchy and well browned skins. In all my years of wing making, the initial cook has almost always clocked in at around 45 minutes, and that's when it's saucing time.
I waffled back-and-forth between removing the wings and applying the sauce in a bowl, or just brushing on the sauce. Both methods have their plusses and minuses, and I decided to go for not having another vessel to clean at the end of the day and brushing on the sauce while the wings were still on the grill, Once I had coated all the wings in the sauce, I recovered the grill and let them continue to cook until the sauce set. Multiple brushings wouldn't be a bad thing here, but the wings looked plenty saucy to me after a single application, so it was then time for plating and digging in.
I rarely order or make barbecue wings, but every time I have them, I'm reminded how much I like them, and these barbecue wings were even better than the standard. That, of course, was thanks to the cherry-jalapeño barbecue that had a very deep tart and fruity flavor with a medium kick of heat that had my taste buds jumping. It also delivered on all the other complex underpinnings that make barbecue sauce what it is, but the real icing on the cake was the fact that these wings still had a good crunch to them, which you can't say of a lot of barbecue wings out there. If I were judging a barbecue contest, these would definitely stand out to me, so I may just give this sauce a shot at my next comp and see what happens.
