Adaptation woes: Chicken wing confit
April 27, 2011 
4 Comments
In light of my success with the duck confit recipe from Modernist Cuisine, I decided to try a variation that would allow me to serve the poultry on the bone, but in a small enough portion to be an appetizer. In other words, I decided to confit chicken wings.
I started off by tweaking the spicing in the Modernist Cuisine cure, to bring it in line with the flavour profile I wanted in the final dish. So I mixed up a batch of cure with coriander, black pepper, fenugreek, cumin and cinnamon, packed it on the wings in vacuum bags in the proportion indicated for the duck confit (18% by weight), and cured them for 10 hours. Then I rinsed them off, repacked them with a bit of fat (roast chicken fat in one bag, and bacon fat in the other), and cooked them sous vide at 82°C for 6 hours. They were given quick chill in an ice bath, followed by a rest in the fridge, before I reheated them in a hot oven until they were sizzling and starting to brown.
In retrospect, all this effort was probably overkill. Normally, “overkill” wouldn’t bother me – as long the results are delicious. But these were only so-so. For one thing, either there was too much cure or the curing time was too long, as the wings were very salty. Not to the point of being inedible, but I wouldn’t want to have more than two of them at a time. Also, chickens being flightless birds, it’s not as though their wings are tough enough to require the tenderizing effects of long time, low temperature cooking, so 6 hours was probably unnecessary. Duck wings might have been a better candidate. (And I may yet do them.)
All of this speaks to the trial-and-error process of adapting a known recipe. I’m glad I did a trial run of these without having to worry about serving them to guests, because I wouldn’t have been pleased with the resulting dish. Now I have a better idea of what needs to be changed, so I can continue to refine the recipe until I have something I’m happy with.
What types of recipes have you successfully adapted?
Sounds like an interesting experiment. Confit chicken wings do sound delicious. I hope your next try goes better.
I just posted about an adaptation I made from Ideas in Food yesterday. I made an extruded potato chip pasta, rather than their sheeted version. See more at the link below.
http://consumedgourmet.blogspot.com/2011/04/extruded-potato-chip-pasta.html
Thanks, Andrew. I’m sure it won’t be too difficult to improve on this version of the chicken wing confit. I have yet to try the Ideas in Food potato chip pasta, but it sounds really good. Lucky you for having an extruder! I’ll have to roll it out in sheets, myself.
Matthew, I’ve done both a chicken and duck leg confit. I vacuum packed the legs in both stages of the preparation. I find when I vacuum pack something for curing it takes far less salt and herbs to be effective than non-pressure methods – this is including pork belly for bacon. And as you know it takes far less fat in the vacuum pack for the sous vide stage of the preparation. I’m intrigued by your choice of spices. I’m imagining a Mexican confit, an Asian spice confit. You continue to inspire.
I’ve never tried chicken leg confit, but I’m thinking about doing so soon. I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of taking traditionally Western European preparations, and flavouring them with combinations drawn from other traditions.