Macaroons & Hot Wings

I didn’t realize that Super Bowl Sunday and National Nutella Day were one and the same.  So what better way to celebrate National Nutella Day than by making Nutella Macaroons? Then I could celebrate the Super Bowl by making some hot wings.

Now normally I would be having some folks over to watch the Super Bowl but not this year.  I’m not sure why. Was it because the Bears had such a bad ending to their season and I didn’t care anymore? I love the Super Bowl primarily for the ads since my favorite team (Da Bears) are rarely in the title game.   With the game starting around 5ish central time I had a lot to do that afternoon.

The first was making the macaroons.  Having learned a few things in the kitchen . . . I can improvise more when I’m cooking and baking is primarily a follow-the-instructions event . . . I needed my kitchen scale.  Trouble is I’ve been looking for it for months.

Well ever since Thanksgiving when my mom was in town.  Now the thing about mom is that she has her own ideas as to where things should go and how to put them away.  Trouble is, I’ve found over the last 50 years, she’s the only one who thinks that way.  When she leaves I am constantly looking for something that was “put away.”

This year it was the kitchen scale.  I turned the pantry upside down.  I emptied every cabinet.  I even went through all the drawers.

Nothing.

I even pulled out some of the videos by the television to see if maybe it got moved there.  Still nothing.  At this point I should have opened a bottle of wine because I tried to make some coffee and spilled it everywhere.  So while I’m wiping up the spilled coffee I happen to look alongside my knife rack.  There’s something white standing there – as if at attention. 

You guessed it.  She pulled a Sherlock Holmes on me and hid it in nearly plain view.  I hadn’t thought to completely empty my counters. (Note to self: next time mom comes to town, clean off counters to find stored items.)

With my handy scale in hand, I was ready.  Well almost.  Rule number one in my kitchen is to have the right ingredients.  Since the macaroons were made from a sort of hazelnut flour I had to grind a couple of cups.  Unfortunately I had only partially read the recipe. So I broke rule number one.  Instead of getting blanched hazelnuts I had regular ones.  I tried to blanche them to get the skin off but no such luck.

Since I didn’t have the patience to peel each hazelnut they all went into the food processor.  Then I went separating the eggs for the meringue.  I follow the approach I learned from Jacques Pepin which is to gently crack the eggs and put into a container and then to take the yolks out.  Gently is the operative word. One yolk that breaks ruins the entire whites. Came close on one but managed to complete the task without having to start over.

If my father-in-law taught me anything, it’s always have the right tools for the job.  In fact, that’s rule number 2 in my kitchen.  Here I didn’t have any of the right tools for the job. After beating the whites and mixing the ingredients together I had a dotted mixture that I put into a Ziplock bag and cut the end off.  

So . . .  I was making merengue blobs on the silpat mat. Big, awkward blobs. Not the most appetizing items on the menu.  In the oven they went and when they came out, they weren’t nearly done enough.   That’s when I had enough.  It was time to shift focus.

On to the hot wings. I found this great recipe for wings in Saveur magazine from a BBQ joint in Kansas City.  Frankly, I’m a huge fan of Kansas City BBQ so I’ve been making these wings on the grill for some time.  Being February in Chicago I really didn’t feel enthusiastic about pulling  the cover off the grill and attempting to grill in below freezing weather. Not that I haven’t done that before but just not today.

After the debacle of the macaroons I wasn’t in the mood to fight the wind and the cold outside so I decided to get them in the oven.  I had marinated them overnight in my version or their rub (that’s why I love cooking more than baking . . . it’s a lot more forgiving) so they were ready for the oven and time to start the sauce. 

Now I love my wings to be well coated so I doubled the recipe for the sauce.  It began by melting one pound of butter.  Nothing can be bad with butter (or bacon!). A little of my favorite hot sauce and some Old Bay seasoning.  Very simple. Very delicious.

They came out of the oven just as the game was starting.  I packed them up and took them over to a friend’s house to share and settled in for the ads – if not the game. Turns out the game was better than the ads although once again the VW ad was my top pick.  Paired with Apothic Red the wings, the game and a friend to share it with.

Nothing better than that! Well . . . watching a Bears Super Bowl win might come out on top.