Dried in the fridge, baked hot, glazed at the end. No deep fryer, and the skin comes out better than most fried wings.
Each wing comes apart into three: the drumette, the flat, and the tip. Cut through the two joints — find the gap with the tip of the knife and it goes through with no force at all.
Keep the tips. They are almost pure collagen and they make the best stock of any part of the bird.
Toss the wings with the salt and baking powder until evenly coated. Spread them on a rack over a tray and leave them uncovered in the fridge overnight.
The baking powder is not a leavener here. It raises the pH of the skin surface, which speeds up browning considerably and causes the skin to blister rather than simply tighten. Baking soda in its place will make them taste of soap.
220 °C. Wings on the same rack, spaced apart, tray underneath to catch the fat. Air needs to get all the way round each one.
Twenty minutes, turn them, then fifteen to twenty more until they are deep brown and the skin looks tight and bubbled.
Honey and soy: everything in a small pan, simmered two minutes until it coats a spoon.
Hot butter: butter melted into the hot sauce over a low heat, vinegar off the heat.
Lemon pepper: butter melted, zest and pepper stirred in, no cooking.
Wings out of the oven and into a mixing bowl, glaze poured over, tossed. Never glaze before or during baking — every one of these contains sugar and sugar at 220 °C for forty minutes is charcoal.
Serve immediately. Glazed wings have a working life of about ten minutes before the skin softens.
The drying step was skipped or shortened. Wings are mostly skin by surface area, and skin that is still holding water will steam in its own moisture for the first fifteen minutes of baking. Twelve hours uncovered in a fridge is not optional in this recipe the way it is optional in others.
The second cause is crowding. Wings packed together on a solid tray sit in their own rendered fat and released steam. Rack, space, tray underneath.