Elle's New England Kitchen

Buffalo Wings--really good. Oven Baked Buffalo Wings--even better. Oven Baked MANGO Buffalo Wings with Mango Cream Dipping Sauce? I think I could eat these every single day.

This is my entry for the Royal Foodie Joust sponsored by The Leftover Queen. April's winner is Michelle at Thursday Night Smackdown. These are both great blogs that I hope you'll all check out. Michelle got to choose the three required ingredients for the current joust, and she chose mango, brown sugar, and cardamom. Great choices, right?

Update: I won the Joust! I'm very excited, and a big thank you all of you that voted, and commented here on my blog. Thank you!



I did a lot of thinking about what I wanted to do. There's lots of sweet choices, but also lots of savory ones. What I came up with is a little of both. The wings are spicy, with a hint of mango, and while oven baked, still nice and crispy. The dipping sauce is perfect alongside the wings. It's cool, creamy, fresh tasting and a little sweet.

Some of you may remember my post on Oven Baked Hooters Style Wings. I knew this was the cooking method I wanted to use for these wings. I thought I could add pureed mango to the Frank's Hot Sauce that the wings get coated in. It worked really well! And even better, it really cut down on the amount of butter in the sauce!

And we'll need something cool and creamy to offset the spicy wings, won't we? Well what if we mix pureed mango with sour cream, add some lime and a bit of brown sugar and cardamom? Yeah, that works! And it helps that it's lick-the-bowl delicious! I'm already thinking of other ways to use this sauce...

I used three mangoes (the last three in the store!) for these two recipes, which was about two cups when pureed.


Mango Buffalo Wings

20 chicken wings
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp cardamom
1/2 cup Frank's Hot Sauce (or another hot sauce, if you prefer)
1/2 cup pureed mango
1/4 cup melted butter or canola oil

Heat oven to 400°. In a large ziptop bag, combine flour and dry spices.
Add the wings to the bag, seal, and toss to coat.
Place the wings on a plate and chill in the fridge for about 30-35 minutes.
In a bowl, mix the pureed mango and hot sauce. Stir in melted butter or oil.

Carefully dip each wing in the sauce, turning to coat. Place on a rimmed baking sheet, covered with foil and lightly greased.
Bake for 40 minutes, carefully turning the wings halfway through cooking time. When the wings are done, remove them from the pan and put them on a cooling rack to prevent them from getting soggy.


Serve with Mango Lime Cream.


Mango Lime Cream Dipping Sauce

Makes approx 2 cups.

1 1/2 cups pureed mango
1/2 cup sour cream
zest of 1 lime
juice of 1/2 a lime
2 tsp brown sugar
3/8 tsp cardamom

Add all ingredients to food processor or blender and process until well blended. Refrigerate until ready to serve.



I have to add that my husband and I just loved these. He's not hard to please, but I can tell when he doesn't like something...he's quiet and politely eats. When he loves something he's eating, he's very vocal and keeps telling me how much he loves it, which he did with these wings. And that sauce is perfect with these. It's cool and creamy, and wonderful for cutting the heat of the wings. I'd suggest giving each person they're own little bowl, because there's going to be lots of double dipping going on, hehe. Not only did he clean his wing bones, but he was sure to get every last drop of the mango lime sauce that he had. And he was looking to see if I had any left to give him. I was feeling nice and tossed him an extra wing, hehe.

First up--guacamole! Is there anyone that doesn't love fresh, cool, chunky guacamole? Anyone? Bueller? Ok, I guess there's gotta be at least a couple of people that don't like it. So more for us!

Guacamole is one of the easiest, and most satisfying things to make. It's so freaking good. The trick is to get good avocados. I always get Hass avocados, but in a pinch, the bigger, green ones are good, too. You can read everything you ever wanted to know about avocados here. If you're buying Hass, look for the darker, almost black ones, that yield a bit to a little squeeze. If they're all hard and green, you can ripen them at home pretty quickly in a paper bag. But be careful--they're funny little things and go from "We're ripe, yay!" to "Um, we're just going to lie here and get moldy...in the next sixty seconds, ok?" ugh!

So cut them in half carefully, from top to bottom, whack the pit with your knife, carefully! and twist it out. Take a knife and carefully cut lines vertically and horizontally while the halves are still in the peel. Then run a spoon under and around the flesh and scoop it out. Did I mention to be careful? Please do!

So here we go! I've made this so many times that I don't use a set recipe or measurements. You can eyeball your avocado/tomato/onion ratio. And if you hate tomatoes or despise onions (but why would you?) you can skip those. Your guacamole won't mind.

Guacamole

3 avocados
1 lime
1 or 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 medium tomato, chopped and seeded
1/2 a small onion (red, white, sweet--doesn't matter)
1 jalapeno, remove seeds and ribs if you want it mild--leave them in if you like it hotter
chopped cilantro
coarse salt

Get your avocados ready, and put the chunks in a medium bowl. Cut the lime in half and squeeze the juice from one half over the avocado. Add the garlic to the bowl and mash it all up some more with a fork, but leave some chunks--chunks are good!

Add the tomato and onion and some salt, then cilantro and jalapeno. Oh, leave out the cilantro if you hate it-- I'll forgive you. Mix it up and give it a taste, and add more lime juice if it needs it. I usually use almost one whole lime.

When you've got it just right, cover it and put it in the fridge to let the flavors mingle amongst themselves. About 1/2 an hour or so. But if you're like us, you'll grab a bag of corn chips and sample some (ok, a lot) before it even hits the fridge. And don't bother with this business of sticking an avocado pit in the guacamole to keep it greener, longer. It's a lie. From the Save the Avocado Pit People--SAPP, for short. Put a bit of plastic wrap right on the surface, and keep it in the fridge. It'll last into the next day, but no longer than that. And if it's a little discolored on top, just give it a stir.

Serve this with chips, in wraps, over a spicy salad, on tacos, in burritos, etc.



Next up--The Foodie Blogroll! Have all you food bloggers joined yet? What are you waiting for? It's a very cool way to get more exposure for your blog, give you more traffic, and a good way to get to know other foodies like yourselves. PLUS you'll find more great blogs to read!

There are three requirements:

1) Your blog must be at least one month old with at least five posts. (I joined one month to the day after I started blogging, hehe.)

2) Your blog must be at least 80% about food.

3) You have to put the Blogroll in your sidebar in plain sight where it can be seen by Jenn, the genius who started it all. It's nice and not in-your-face. See it in my sidebar, there on the right?

Here's a blurb from Jenn, on Foodieblogroll.com:

Why Should I join The Foodie Blogroll? What’s in it for me?

The Foodie Blogroll is the first of its kind and is one of the fastest growing online communities for foodies. With over 1000 members spanning the globe in less than a year, there is a reason for its popularity. It is the first blogroll created just for foodies like you. When I started my food blog, I went looking for a blogroll for food and cooking related websites and there were none to be found. So I decided to create my own! This is all about building the best community online for foodies! Imagine what having over 1000 websites linking to you can do for your blogs traffic and Google or Technorati ranking.

A great benefit for joining is a forum for members (and other foodies alike) to hang out with each other and get to know each other and talk about our favorite subject – FOOD. There are also contests and your blog could also be featured as part of my Finest Foodies Friday – where I feature the best blogs from the Foodie Blogroll! If you are not a member, you can’t be featured.

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