A few years ago, we used to buy some of our meat from a butcher whose product range included pieces of chicken wing coated with breadcrumbs and a few herbs and spices, eg red chilli flakes. They cooked up quite well on the grill of the barbecue we had at the time, provided we brought the pieces to room temp first, sprayed them with olive oil, cooked them over a medium flame and put the lid down for part of the cooking. (Phew, that’s a plethora of provisos!)

A couple of years later, we began to make our own marinade for chicken wing pieces – the two larger segments – to be roasted in the kitchen oven or the Weber Q, as described in an item I posted in September this year. That marinade has now been promoted to the service of chicken Marylands, leading me to think we should find something new for those delectable wing pieces. Our palate memories turned us in the direction of crumbs with attitude.

We began with two or three cloves of garlic, mashed to a paste by Maggie with the tip of a bread-and-butter knife (subsequently replaced with a garlic grater received as a Christmas present!). We added dry ingredients to the paste – cayenne pepper, black pepper and chicken stock powder; we often use the last as a flavouring but not as a stock substitute. Then we used a spoon to gradually disperse the paste through some breadcrumbs, adding extra crumbs as we went. Once the garlic was well integrated with the crumbs, we added some finely chopped parsley and chives, then some olive oil and a few more breadcrumbs.

Maggie then coated the wing pieces lightly with some egg yolk, just enough to help the crumb mix stick to the chicken. The plate of crumbed goodies spent some time in the fridge before being brought back to room temp and roasted in the Weber Q.

Meanwhile, we made a Caesar-style salad with asparagus, bacon, lettuce, not-quite-hard-boiled eggs and a dressing of our favourite mayonnaise lightened up with some sour cream. Yummy!

As you can see, the protein count in the bone bowl was kinda low!

The whole garlic-breadcrumb massage thing was a bit tedious, much as we were happy with the result. Next time, say, next week, we might use some garlic salt instead, purchased from Gewürzhaus, Melbourne’s leading spice retailer.