chicken wings with lemon and black pepper
rating:This recipe is by the peerless Nigel Slater. I don't think I've done much mucking about with it, for once. It's finger food - don't even think about using knife and fork, or serving to anyone you're not comfortable with.
12 wings serve two greedy people.
12 large free-range chicken wings
two unwaxed lemons
5 bay leaves
1 heaped tbsp black peppercorns – try to use Wynad from Kerala; well worth it!
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp sea salt flakes
Check the chicken wings for stray feathers. Put the wings into a roasting dish.
Halve the lemons and squeeze them, then pour the juice over the chicken wings. Cut each of the lemon skins into quarters.
Put the peppercorns in a mortar and bash them so they crack into small pieces (do NOT grind – it will not produce such an aromatic result). The peppercorns should still be nubbly, rather than finely ground. Add the the olive oil.Pour the mixture over the chicken wings and make sure that all pieces are well coated.Tuck the bay leaves and the quartered lemon halves in between the pieces of chicken. Scatter the salt flakes, without crushing them, over the chicken. Roast at 220ºC (or 200 for a fan oven) for about an hour, turning once. The chicken should be golden and sticky, the edges blackened here and there.
Serve with a stack of disposable paper napkins and a fingerbowl with a piece of lemon floating in it.
I made this again at the weekend but did it a little differenlty. I grated the lemon peel with a microplane (I recently bought it and the novelty hasn't worn off yet) and sprinkled this over the chicken wings. I also, unintentionally let it marinade for an hour. This was becasue after and hour I went to retreive the chcken from the oven and found that the element has died and the oven was still cold.
Very nice.