Finally a good baked buffalo wing recipe

Baked Buffalo Chicken Wings
Food and Wine Magazine’s Quick From Scratch Chicken Cookbook Copyright 1997, 2001, 2004

4 pounds chicken wings
3 tablespoons cooking oil
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 ¾ teaspoon salt
1 ½ teaspoons cayenne
2/3 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup sour cream
¼ pound blue cheese, crumbled (about 1 cup)
2 scallions, including green tops, chopped
5 teaspoons vinegar
¼ teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper
¼ cup ketchup
1 tablespoon Tabasco sauce ( I used Crytal Hot Sauce)
8 ribs celery, cut into sticks

1. Heat the oven to 425 degrees. In a large bowl, combine the wings, oil, garlic, 1 ½ teaspoons of the salt, and the cayenne. Arrange the wings in a single layer on two large baking sheets. Bake until just done, about 25 minutes. I had the full wings and cooked these much, much longer.
2. Meanwhile, in a medium glass or stainless-steel bowl, combine the mayonnaise, sour cream, blue cheese, scallions, 1 teaspoon of the vinegar, the remaining ¼ teaspoon salt and the black pepper.
3. In a large bowl, combine the ketchup, the remaining 4 teaspoons vinegar, and the Tabasco sauce. Add the wings and toss to coat. Serve with the celery stick and blue-cheese dressing alongside.

I kept the proportions of this recipe the same but for about 12- 14 full-wings, I made 1 1/2 times the recipe for the wing sauce and I only made half the recipe for the blue cheese dip. I was curious how this recipe would be since I've never seen a buffalo chicken wing recipe using ketchup before but these were great. They weren't terribly hot since I used Crystal instead of Tabasco but that's how I prefer them. The blue cheese dip was excellent too. I almost left the scallions out but I'm glad I didn't. I liked the slight oniony taste they gave the dip. Most of the commercial blue cheese dressings aren't very flavorful. My two-year old loved the blue cheese dip but he's a horrible, double-dipper. Actually he just used the celery as a spoon basically, even George Costanza would have been mortified.

I've tried to make baked buffalo wings before but this is my first success. Other times the wings weren't crispy enough but this time they were. These aren't really much healthier than deep-fried wings I suppose but it's just not worth filling our deep fryer with oil for as much as we use it. It does take quite a while longer to get wings crispy in the oven compared to how long it takes to deep fry them but we weren't in a hurry.

I forget exactly what the score is with these Food and Wine cookbooks but it's many, many successes to only one failure. I would definitely make these wings again. Hopefully next time, I'll have the wingettes and drummies on hand. I don't mind the full wings but I prefer them broken down (I'm a wingette girl).

Question of the Day: Do you prefer the 'drummie' or the 'wingette' part of the wing, or don't you care for wings at all?