Oz’s Kg clanger

Bangkok is a great place to live if you love to cook. Cheap fresh produce, available at big markets like Khlong Toey, makes it easy to be chef for lots of friends while keeping your costs nice and low. This is a story about buying way too much.

Beer and wings, a little piece of Americana in a Thai kitchen.

Bad at math

Math (or maths if you prefer) is one of those things that when bungled can lead to disastrous outcomes. A slight miscalculation might lead to something horrible like the Challenger crash, the sinking of the Titanic or any number of disasters spawned from tiny numerical errors.

This miscalculation is of course in no way as dramatic and tragic as the aforementioned cases. The outcome in fact was something significantly positive.

In one of my days relaxing at home with the dogs, I came up with the idea of hosting a party with unlimited buffalo wings and rainbow brownies. You know, one of those days when you want to get fat with friends and not worry about silly things like cholesterol. A total of 24 people clicked ‘attend’ on the Facebook event page — a number much higher than anticipated — so I needed to make some calculations for the grocery shopping. This is where my shitty math comes into play.

Apparently there’s this cliché that Asians are good at math. Unfortunately, my highest grade in the subject was a B minus (sorry dad), so whoever’s in charge of the stereotype department seriously needs to step up their racism game. On top of that, I have the terrible habit of overestimating food portions, assuming everyone is a gluttonous fuck like me.

So, my calculations went like this: 24 people attending = 20kg of chicken. I felt sure that everyone who showed up would devour almost a kilogram of wings. For my American friends, we’re talking 44lbs of poultry power aka an average American meal (stereotypes are awesome!)

Here are some things I left out of the calculation:

·      Not everyone attending is going to eat the wings; some of them are vegetarians and just came to chat, drink beer and eat brownies.

·      Not everyone is a gluttonous fuck.

The bill for the wings was THB 1,800 in total, or THB 90 per kilo (about USD 1.2 per pound).

I found several good wings recipes online but picked the Hooter’s one because of the sauce. Also, it recommends you deep-fry the wings, which achieves a crispier skin and allows you to serve up at a much faster rate than the steam-then-bake method. What delighted me was the amount of butter required. I’m a big fan of Julia Childs and the blocks of yellow gold were definitely not used sparingly. You can never have too much butter!

In case you’re wondering what 20 kilograms of chicken wings looks like:

Heaps of meat.

Colourful creations

Now then, I hear you ask, what are these rainbow brownies? The inspiration for this colourful mess of a dessert came from a funnyjunk.com post called Rainbow Fuckin’ Brownies. Aggressive title and writing style aside, it’s quite an easy-to-follow recipe. The trick is to separate the white-chocolate brownie mix into three to five equal parts (depending on how many colours you want in your rainbow), then add food colouring to each part before pouring them into the same tin for baking. I added almond flakes into mine for texture but feel free to add whatever you want like, walnuts, chocolate chips, pecans, bacon bits, anchovies, etc.

Result:

So many colours, so unhealthy, so good.

The aftermath:

More than 24 people showed up, it turned out, as friends of friends came along too. They brought their own beers, monetary contributions for the wing buffet and homemade sauces like honey mustard, buffalo and Armageddon (prepared with the Satan’s Blood chili extract that I found in LA and which boasts a whopping 800,000 Scoville units).

My, what … friendly packaging

Despite the increased guest numbers, the 20kg of chicken was only 65% cleared; the third bucket of wings was left untouched and donated to the guards of my building instead.

To sum it up, here’s what I learned from hosting a wings and brownies party:

1.    The average person eats at most a pound of wings, not a kilo. Joey Chestnut and Takeru Kobayashi do not count as average persons.

2.    Wings make great leftovers.

3.    It’s more efficient to create a supply-chain system when cooking wings. Organise the seasoned chicken, deep fryer, rack for shaking off excess oil, the sauce dispenser and serving plate in that order.

4.    Wings take about 7 to 9 minutes to cook through in a deep fryer.

5.    About THB 150 to 200 per head should cover the costs of a wings-and-brownie night.

6.    Blue cheese dip is really just a combination of sour cream, mayonnaise, blue cheese and several herbs.

7.    Paper plates and cups eliminate the need for tiresome dishwashing.

8.    Have a big cooler filled with ice for the BYOB people; you’ll never fit all that beer in your fridge.

9.    Have plenty of napkins around the table.

10. Have a camera ready to photograph people who try the Armageddon wings (800,000 on the Scoville scale is just a few units shy of low-strength pepper spray).

Oz is a foodie, amateur chef and fishing extraordinaire, check out his blog at http://ozbkk.wordpress.com/,  follow him on twitter @bangkokhooker and keep up to date with his fishing adventures at http://bangkokhooker-fishing.com/