Issue #2 February 17th - March 2nd, 2006

Vermont Johnson Sas
by:
Texas Johnson & Phisch

Pirates have one rule for shopping; haggle and trade, rather than scrimp and save.  This calls for having an eye towards the glut on the market.  A good pirate will spot an upcoming event with predictable waste and gear their diet accordingly.  Everyone remembers this concept from when they were thirteen years old or so, and they realized that although they were too old to trick-or-treat, Nov. 1st candy prices were so low that a modest investment could carry even the most corpulent student through until X-mass.

The pirate kids noticed that not everyone remembered to invest. It is no trick to, as some of you may recall, undersell the very businesses that sold you your wares, and still turn a more than modest profit.  A good pirate knows that ten candies purchased for five cents apiece can turn into a week without math homework.  Only the best pirates save a chest full for themselves.

Juvenile pirates created Valentine’s Day in an obvious attempt to corner the candy market twice in a single year.  I mean who else would try to organize a holiday around a guy shooting arrows and giving bloody hearts to your lover?  Unfortunately the Greeting Cards Pirates have shanghaied that day.  They may have taken the blood away but Feb. 15th will always belong to enterprising young pirates.

 We the pirates of the Blackened Grill are no better, nor worse, than those young scalawags.  When we see a deal we take it.  The landlubber’s fascination with this “football” game gave the PotBG a real boon.  Chicken wings for cheap.

While deep-frying chicken wings still isn’t grilling, we thought it was a step in the right direction and somewhat relevant.  For this batch we used Ol’ sparky (our hotplate) and a large frying pan, about 2 ¾ deep and ½ gallon of vegetable oil.  While the size of the pan isn’t really important, it must be deep enough oil to completely submerge the wings.  First we heated the oil to about 350 degrees (anything above 300 degrees is acceptable).  Then we dropped the wings into the oil.  We then friend the wings until they were floating, golden brown, and slightly crispy on the outside (about 15 minutes or 30 minutes if frozen).  Once wings are floating, flipping may be necessary in order to make both sides crispy.

Fried chicken wings are always good, we threw them in some boiling oil, fried them until they were crispy on the outside, dash them with a little salt and pepper, and toss them with one of our favorite sauces.

While properly cooking the chicken is significant, the most important part of any good hot wing is the sauce surrounding it.  So we decided to use our personal favorite sauce, which we like to refer to as The Vermont Johnson Sas.  This is a maple syrup and chipotle sauce, that can replace any sweet barbecue sauce, and we will reference it for many other recipes.

Here’s what we use:

5oz. Jar of your favorite chipotle sauce
12.5 oz. Jar of maple syrup
7.5 oz. Can of chipotle peppers in adabo sauce (minced)
5 cloves of garlic
½ medium sweet onion
¼ cup white wine

Here’s what we do:

• Puree onion and garlic, in food processor or blender.
• Sauté onions and garlic, with butter, salt and chili powder (to taste) until slightly browned.
• Puree chipotle in blender (as long as you’re going to wash it anyway.)
• In the same pot add chipotle peppers, chipotle sauce, wine and maple syrup.
• Simmer until sauce thickens slightly.

 We pirates would call this a “medium” sauce for a mild sauce leave out the can of peppers, and use only the bottled sauce combined with syrup.  To knock your socks straight through your shoes, stew three or four habanera peppers whole in the sauce.  A favorite pirate trick is to offer the new guy a sweet nut (a pepper covered in maple) and watch him run for water.

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