DIY Dinners: Wing Shack Co.
I crave a lot of things, and really quite often. From the fiery desire for mapo tofu that plagued me in the first lockdown, to hormone-fuelled, Liam Neeson-style reconnaissance missions for Dairy Milk on certain days of the month (I will find you, and I will eat you), I have a tendency to get a little overwhelmed.
I did not, however, think I would crave meat – even when I was preparing to ditch it for a month. Foolish? Absolutely. Explicable? I think so.
This January, I’ve been road-testing a meat-free diet. Not because I watched Cowspiracy on New Year’s Eve and jumped out of bed a born-again militant vegan (I’m eating fish, so that rules that out), but because I’ve slowly come to realise that I could probably do with eating less meat.
I wasn’t too worried about it, to be honest. I’ll often find myself having had an accidental vegetarian day – so why not 30-odd of them in a row? Should be a doddle, right?
It turns out that my subconscious brain is not as open-minded as my conscious one. The first dream about meat happened roughly two weeks in and featured my sister cooking an entire duck, a whole chicken, a leg of lamb and rump of beef, all to feed just four (F.O.U.R.) people for Sunday lunch. Another saw me entirely empty my school canteen of bacon supplies. Houston, we have a problem.
I shrugged it off, until similar thoughts began filtering through to waking life. I’d find myself lingering over #dirtyburger #foodporn post on Instagram for quite a bit longer than usual, and exchanging seductive glances with a Scotch egg at the deli counter. And then one afternoon, after walking past the chicken shop round the corner at lunchtime, I could not for the life of me stop thinking about the Wing Shack Co. chicken wings.
Sweet temptation: Wing Shack Co.’s honey sesame chicken wings
The DIY kit had turned up at my house a little before Christmas, featuring a full 1.5kg of wings, marinating happily, squished together in a bag of wilfully spiced sauce. There were instructions for deep frying, but I opted for the “pop them in the oven for a bit” option as I quite like my house when it’s not burned-down.
They came out crisp and smelling ripe with smoky spices, and I regret not saving a few to eat sans sauce. My attention however, was captured by the prospect of rolling them in honey and soy, or buffalo sauce with a sprinkling of chives.
Wing Shack Co. describes its buffalo sauce as “the tangiest” – it was, and probably a few dashes too heavy with the vinegar. However, when combined with a dollop of blue cheese sauce (a homemade addition from me this time, but it’s how they serve them in the restaurants) and a stick of celery, things balance themselves out.
The sesame wings were, however, spot on. Sweet with honey, and given a proper saline wash with soy sauce, it clung to every nook and cranny of the chicken’s crispy skin, gathering nutty sesame seeds eagerly.
Before now, I never really got why people wanted meat substitutes. I know that they can taste great, but I always figured that those who relied on them simply hadn’t thought outside of the box. I didn’t really get it in the first week of January either, when I interviewed Michelin-starred vegan chef Alexis Gauthier, who surprised me by showing his support for them.
“When people are trying to embrace veganism, it's all about textures that they are comfortable with eating,” he said. Fools, I sighed. Don’t these people know how wonderful vegetables can taste? Are they not comfortable with those textures?
Two weeks later, and there I am googling “When is Impossible Burger coming to UK?” Had I not been a under the weather this week (not the C-word, nobody panic) and wondering whether I’d be able to do it justice, this blog would have been about the DIY kit from Mooshies, my favourite vegan burger place in London which does a sublime impression of a Big Mac that is about 100 times better than the original. I could easily forgo all of Instagram’s dirty burger towers if I had one of these by my side.
It is not the taste of meat I am craving, it’s the texture. Something to really sink my teeth into, something to tear from its bones.
I never expected to crave meat, because you don’t crave something if you’ve had too much of it – or in my case, if you have quite enough of it almost everyday. I had lulled myself into a false sense of security by eating half a turkey over the Christmas period, and by enthusiastically agreeing with every chef I’ve heard discuss how great vegetables are.
They are, they are wonderful – but chicken wings are also bloody great too.
This DIY kit was supplied as a complimentary press sample.
For more information, visit wingshackco.com and greatfood2u.co.uk to purchase.
