Toaster Oven BBQ Chicken Wings

(serves 2-3)
This is a recipe for BBQ wings, the type you’d find in a sports bar. For years I tried to cook these wings at home in the same style with limited success. Then one day I discovered the secret to marinating chicken wings. Most recipes use the method of brushing the wings with sauce as you cook them, because its very difficult for flavours to penetrate  chicken skin and reach the meat within, but this recipe doesn’t. The secret is counter-intuitive: you have to cook the wings before marinating them. 

Ingredients

1. Chicken Wings (20 mid joint, 700g)
2. Shallots (4)
3. Garlic (1 bulb)
4. BBQ Sauce (1/3 cup)
5. Cumin
6. Mustard
7. Liquid Smoke
8. Whiskey

Preparation

1. In a medium sized pot, mix 1/3 cup of BBQ sauce with 1.5 cups water, 1t mustard, 1t cumin and 1t salt.
2. Peel the garlic and shallots and put them whole into the pot.
3. Rinse your chicken wings and add them to the pot.
4. Bring the pot to a boil. After 5 minutes of boiling, carefully fish out the chicken wings without damaging the skin. Put the wings in a Tupperware-like of container.
5. Continue to simmer the sauce until it has halved in volume. This should take perhaps fifteen minutes. Turn off the heat and stir in 1t liquid smoke and 1T whiskey.
6. After the sauce has cooled sufficiently, pour it into the container with the wings. Cover and leave the wings to marinate in the fridge overnight, or in any case for at least six hours. Shake once or twice to allow the marinade to reach between the wings.
7. Preheat your toaster oven to 200^oC (390^oF) degrees.
8. Arrange the wings on a wire rack in the toaster oven tray and bake for 25 minutes. You’ll need to do this in two batches as the wings should not touch each other.
9. Warm up the leftover marinade in the microwave or in a saucepan. You can serve the wings either with the BBQ sauce separate or coated with the BBQ sauce.

Notes

• The most important thing you can do is cover your toaster oven tray with foil, so you don’t have to wash off the carbonized BBQ sauce.
• Do not boil the wings for more than 5 minutes. You want the wings to be cooked, but not the skin to soften too much.
• If you are cooking the wings in a full sized oven, it will probably take less than 25 minutes. They are done when you notice dark splotches develop. You can of course also simply cook the wings over a actual BBQ.
• The same method works for all kinds of sauces you might want to flavour wings with, like teriyaki or oyster sauce. Just boil for five minutes and marinate overnight in the fridge.