I am in Pittsburgh with my family for the week: this is the land of Steelers fans and we are at the end of the regular football season.

Steelers fans are a rare breed of person.  They love their team.  They have ferocious pride in their players and their coach, but at the same time they never believe that their team has a chance of winning.  When the Steelers win, fans view it as this wonderful miracle that has occurred despite the bumbling of their team.  When the team loses the fans shake their heads and say, “Ah!  We always fall apart when it counts!” no matter how insignificant the game.

 

For a Steelers’ fan raised far away from this land of sports history and fandom, watching my team play at a bar full of local Pittsburgh Steelers fans is…well…it’s terrifying.  These people are insane!  They spit and scream and beat up others for not supporting the right team.  It’s a level of intensity I’m not used to after spending eight years in North Carolina where your team preference is never taken for granted and Panthers fans can be seen shaking hands with fans of the opposing team after a game.  No, no, Steelers fans are scary.

 

So, we’re watching the game at home today.  It’s a good game.  We’re playing the Browns, who are in the same conference as us.  And they’re really bad this year, so we’ll probably do okay, but even if we don’t, we’re still going to the play-offs and they’re not (although don’t try telling that to a real Steelers fan.  They know the truth which is that this game counts).  So, this will be a fun day of football.  And as such, I need to make some damn good bar food.

Dad has a great recipe for ribs that the two of us perfected together a few years back.  It involves a dry rub and steaming followed by a Louisville-style sauce and grilling or roasting the ribs until the meat is crisp on the outside and falling apart on the inside.  He’s making those while I focus on the wings. 

 

 Three years ago (not coincidentally, this was right around the time that the Steelers were hitting all the road games during the 2005 playoffs) I got really obsessed with wings.  I can do a darn good BBQ wing, and Sam’s mom has a traditional wing recipe that blows all the competition out of the water, but what I like is a Buffalo-style wing.    

Here’s what I do: First I take the wings and cut them up so that they are half “drumettes” and half “wings.”  The easiest way to do this is with poultry sheers, but a sharp knife works just fine.  Then I pat the pieces dry and season them with salt, pepper, and just a little garlic powder.  I heat some sort of flavorless oil in a heavy skillet (canola or vegetable oil are good) and I fry the wings at a high temperature until they are just brown.  You have to do this at a high temperature or the wings will cook through before they are browned and will end up dry and overcooked.  When the wings are browned set them aside to drain off the extra oil.

 While I’m waiting for the wings to drain I pre-heat the oven to 325 and I mix up my sauce.  I have yet to come up with a perfect wing sauce, but I have found a way to adjust an existing sauce to make it perfect.  I take one cup of WingTime medium buffalo sauce, add in a whole stick of melted butter (hey, when you’re making junk food why even pretend it’s anything but bad for you?), a teaspoon or so of Tabasco, and a tablespoon of lime juice.  If the butter you used was unsalted you might want to add in a little salt too.

Put a layer of the sauce on the bottom of a shallow, rimmed oven pan.  Arrange the chicken parts in the pan so they form a single later.  Evenly cover the wings with the rest of the sauce.  Pop them in the oven for 20 minutes, flip them over to make sure the sauce is absolutely everywhere and cook for another 20 minutes.  While you’re baking the wings you might want to mix up some sort of dipping sauce for them.  Most people are partial to blue cheese or ranch, both of which can be purchased pre-made from the store or whipped up from a basic cookbook recipe, but a yogurt or sour cream based sauce can be good too.

 Once you’ve gotten your wings out of the oven just arrange them on a plate, squirt a little more lime juice over the top, and serve with a side of WingTime sauce and whatever other sauce you’ve chosen.  Grab a beer and turn on the TV, it’s game time!