The ultimate wing-ding

Here’s one way to get your tailgate in gear: Wing it.

Barbecue up a big, old tailgate full of chicken wings, in three or four varieties.

Tailgating food usually tends toward bratwurst and burgers. But as it turns out, chicken wings are just about the perfect tailgating food.

• They’re inexpensive.

• They’re easy to grill.

• You can eat them with your fingers.

• And nearly everyone loves them.

There are a number of theories on why people can’t get enough of wings, but it boils down to the same reason people like “Baywatch.” People like skin.

The chicken wing is the part of the chicken that has the highest ratio of skin to meat. Chicken skin may not be your heart surgeon’s idea of the perfect food. It’s loaded with fat. Yet there is no question that it is also loaded with flavor, especially when grilled to a crisp, crackling bronze.

All that skin surface also means a chicken wing thoroughly takes on the character of any marinade or sauce used to baste the wings. So a few pounds of wings can be turned into a variety of flavors, all cooked at the same time on the same grill.

So at your next tailgating party – or just your next TV football gathering – you can pass around a big platter of wings in four flavors: Indy Wings, Hong Kong Honey-Glazed Wings, Kicked-Up Horseradish Wings and Buffa-Que Wings.

The latter are an outstanding grilled version of Buffalo wings, the dish that made the chicken wing famous. The chicken wing was once considered a relatively disposable part of the chicken, good mostly for throwing into the soup pot. But Buffalo wings, invented in a Buffalo, N.Y. tavern, gave wings top billing. They were deep-fried, tossed in a peppery red sauce, and dunked in a cooling bleu-cheese dip. Now, you can barely find a happy hour that doesn’t have ‘em.

Buffa-Que Wings improves on this formula by cutting out the deep-frying (and much of the fat) and crisping the wings up on a smoky grill. You still get the red-pepper kick – the recipe below calls for an entire cup of Tabasco – and the blue-cheese dip.

However, not everyone is a big fan of hot wings. During a recent evening of barbecued-wing experimenting, we discovered that wings are just as good when given a sweeter, Asian-influenced glaze. The Hong Kong Honey-Glazed Wing recipe, below, is the simplest of wing preparations, since it calls for nothing but garlic, salt and pepper, and honey. Yet the result is crispy and shiny-bronzed.

Those two varieties bracket the hot and sweet ends of the wing spectrum. Yet during our grilling-tasting session, our two favorites were two even more imaginative variations.

The Indy Wings, so named because barbecue guru Steven Raichlen ran across them in the parking lot of the Indianapolis Speedway, were the tangiest and smokiest of the bunch. The secret is Italian dressing and plenty of hickory chips on the fire.

The Kicked-Up Horseradish Wings were the wildest of the bunch, thanks to a 1/4 -cup of horseradish in the sauce. They turned out eye-watering pungent and very salty, which in any other dish might be a drawback; but not necessarily in tailgating recipe.

“You need to have a good excuse to drink more beer,” said one of our taste-testers, as he proceeded to devour a few more wings and pop open another cold one.

A few notes about grilling methods:

• The best and smokiest flavor comes from grilling over indirect heat on a charcoal fire, with plenty of hardwood chips. Indirect heat (the coals piled to the sides with a drip pan in the middle) keeps the wings from burning and allows you to slow-cook them for 30-40 minutes while they pick up the smoke flavor. Then, in the last couple of minutes, you can move them directly over the coals to crisp up the skins.

• If you like to tailgate with a portable gas grill, that can work as well. You can cook them over indirect heat (over one turned-off burner). But we found that with a gas grill, you can also cook them slowly over direct heat, as long as you set the fire at low-to-medium. Just keep an eye on the wings to make sure they aren’t browning to fast or charring. You want to cook them slow, so they’ll be fall-off-the-bone tender.

• The sauces, in most cases, should be slapped on during the last half of the cooking. Baste the wings too early, and they’ll just burn.

• As for wood chips, hickory is traditional, but any fruitwood (apple, cherry or pear, for instance) goes particularly well with chicken. If cooking over gas, you can still get some smoke by putting some wood chips in a foil pouch and putting the pouch under the grate, directly above a burner.

We can’t overlook the biggest problem in barbecuing wings: You need to make a lot. One hungry tailgater can easily put away four or five wings. Grill space is an issue, especially when using the indirect method. The solution is to either bring an auxiliary grill – not too practical for tailgating – or get to the parking lot early and cook the wings up in a couple of installments.

Here’s another solution for the foresighted tailgater. Grill them up the day before and bring ‘em in a cooler. Like fried chicken, barbecued wings taste even better cold. Or you can toss them on a grill for five or ten minutes and heat them back up on game day.

We’ve adapted these recipes for uniform cooking time, so you can barbecue a couple of different kinds on the same grill.

Some require an advance marinade or other advance preparation. But once you get to the stadium, all you have to do is fire up your grill, toss on the wings, turn them once or twice, baste them once or twice and pass them around.

Oh, one other thing: Be sure and provide plenty of paper napkins. Make that plenty of Handi-Wipes. These wings are sticky.

Buffa-Que Wings

Adapted from “BBQ USA” by Steven Raichlen

16 whole chicken wings (about 3 1/2 pounds)

1/2 cup Tabasco sauce

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed

2 teaspoons coarse salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

For the mop sauce:

1 stick butter

1/2 cup Tabasco

Rinse the chicken wings and blot dry. For the marinade, whisk together hot sauce, lemon juice, oil, Worcestershire, garlic, salt and pepper. Pour over wings and let marinate in refrigerator for 4 hours or as long as overnight.

For the mop sauce, melt the butter and stir in the hot sauce. Set up grill for indirect grilling and add wood chips. Discard marinade and put wings on the grill, away from the fire. Cook the wings, turning every so often, until browned and cooked through, about 30 to 40 minutes. Baste with mop sauce during last 15 minutes. To finish, move the wings over the fire for a minute or two until they start to crisp up, being careful not to let them burn. Remove to a platter or bowl and pour the rest of the mop sauce over them.

Serve with plenty of napkins, and with blue cheese sauce for dipping.

Yield: 16 wings

Approximate nutrition per wing: Unable to calculate due to recipe variables.

Blue Cheese Sauce

4 ounces blue cheese

1 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup sour cream

1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar

1/4 cup minced onion

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Crumble the blue cheese in a bowl and mix in the rest of the ingredients. Use as a dip for hot wings and celery sticks.

Yield: 1 1/2 cups sauce

Approximate nutrition per tablespoon: 71 calories, 7 grams fat (2 grams saturated, 90 percent fat calories), 1 gram protein, .7 grams carbohydrate, 8 milligrams cholesterol, less than 1 gram dietary fiber, 95 milligrams sodium.

Indy Wings

Adapted from “BBQ USA” by Steven Raichlen

18 whole chicken wings, about 4 pounds

Garlic salt

Celery salt

Freshly ground black pepper

For basting:

1 1/2 cups Italian dressing

3/4 cup honey

3/4 cup fresh lemon juice

1 1/2 teaspoons liquid smoke

2 teaspoons dried oregano

2 teaspoons hot red pepper flakes

2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

Coarse salt

Rinse the wings and blot them dry. Sprinkle generously with garlic salt, celery salt and pepper. Mix all of the baste ingredients together and whisk. Set up grill for indirect grilling and add wood chips. Put wings on the grill, away from the fire. Cook the wings, turning every so often, until browned and cooked through, about 30 to 40 minutes. Baste with sauce after 15 minutes and about every 8 minutes after that. To finish, move the wings over the fire until they start to crisp up, being careful not to let them burn. Remove to a platter and pour the rest of the basting mixture over all.

Yield: 18 wings

Approximate nutrition per serving: Unable to calculate due to recipe variables.

Hong Kong Honey-Glazed Wings

Adapted from “The Barbecue Bible” by Steven Raichlen

12 whole chicken wings

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

1/2 cup honey for brushing

Rinse the wings and blot them dry. Make two or three deep slashes to the bone in the meaty part of each wing. Sprinkle wings with garlic, salt and pepper. Turn the wings to coat and let marinate for 2 to 4 hours. Set up grill for indirect grilling. Put wings on the grill, away from the fire. Cook the wings, turning every so often, until browned and cooked through, about 30-40 minutes. Baste with warmed honey during the last four minutes. To finish, move the wings over the fire until they start to crisp up, being careful not to let them burn. Remove to a platter and serve.

Yield: 12 wings

Approximate nutrition per serving: 143 calories, 6.6 grams fat (1.8 grams saturated, 41 percent fat calories), 9 grams protein, 12 grams carbohydrate, 28 milligrams cholesterol, less than 1 gram dietary fiber, 319 milligrams sodium.

Kicked-Up Horseradish Grilled Chicken Wings

Adapted from “Paul Kirk’s Championship Barbecue” by Paul Kirk

18 to 20 chicken wings, about 4 pounds

2 tablespoons garlic salt

For the basting sauce:

2 tablespoons of garlic salt

1/4 cup unsalted butter

1/4 cup prepared horseradish

1/4 cup ketchup

2 tablespoons cider vinegar

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon Louisiana hot sauce

2 teaspoons crushed black peppercorns

To make the sauce, combine all of the basting sauce ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Set aside.

Set up grill for indirect grilling and add some wood chips. Sprinkle garlic salt over the wings. Put wings on the grill, away from the fire. Cook the wings, turning every so often, until browned and cooked through, about 30 to 40 minutes. Baste with sauce after 15 minutes and then about every 8 minutes. To finish, move the wings over the fire until they start to crisp up, being careful not to let them burn. Remove to a platter and serve.

Yield: 18 to 20 wings

Approximate nutrition per serving: Unable to calculate due to recipe variables.