Spicy Maple Wings
I (conditionally) love myself some maple syrup. Slather that stuff on my french toast, or waffles or get a little on my breakfast sausage, and it's heavenly, but put it in a mainly savory recipe and I may have a pretty opposite feeling. Used as a primary sweetener, I find the flavor of maple syrup can quickly become prominent to the point of distraction, which is why it's rarely used in my recipes on this site. However, now being closer to 60 wing recipes in, I wondered if I could devise a wing sauce with maple syrup that speaks to me, and these spicy maple wings certainly hit that mark.
My original challenge to myself was to make a sweet wing using maple syrup that I would approve of, but quickly realized that was going to be hard to pull off and decided to lean into the spicy as an easy, and delicious, contrast to the sweetness of the syrup. I used multiple peppers to give the finishing sauce a depth which included hot pepper jelly and chipotle. The maple flavor was still a little too forward for me though, so I added in some Dijon which dialed that back and then mixed in a bit of soy sauce for a salty and savory background note.
For the dry rub, I expanded on the peppers even more by continuing the use of chipotle, but added in black and cayenne peppers as well. These were mixed into the salt and baking powder base I use for most all of my wing recipes—that later ingredient helps form a textured skin that sauces cling well to.
After applying the rub to the wings, which I had patted dry with paper towels first, I arranged the chicken in a single layer on a wire rack set in a baking sheet. I set that in the fridge to air dry overnight knowing that removing as much moisture I could from the skin before grilling would mean the crispiest results down the road.
Nothing new or fancy with the grilling of these wings from my standard recipe—merely set the chicken over the cool side of a two-zone fire running at high heat and then covered the grill and waited. I didn't need to move or flip the wings at all during cooking and when I checked on them about 40 minutes later, they were well browned with crackling skin.
I transferred the wings to a large bowl next and poured in the sauce. While tossing the wings to coat, the sauce warmed up and thinned out. While they looked well coated and glistening, I worried my sauce may have been a little too thin and wouldn't deliver all the flavor I was after.
That wasn't the case though and these wings were even better than I originally imagined that would be. The crunchy bite definitely had a strong sweetness to it with a mild savory maple flavor. There was a hint of mustard, but the peppers are what really added the depth with chipotles being the the most prominent thanks to their smoky character, while the jelly, cayenne, and black peppers also did their part to release a medium heat that was well balanced with the sugary base. I garnished mine with a bit of sage, which wasn't that strong, but every once and a while I got a nice seasonally-apt herbal taste mixed in and felt like it was worth mentioning as a good idea, albeit not totally necessary. Now only if I could trust all savory dishes built upon maple syrup to taste this way, I could totally and unconditionally always love the stuff.
