The flour-coated kind that stays crisp and absorbs sauce, but is more akin to KFC in texture than the thin-skinned original.
The naked kind that is juicy and tender, but lacks the blistered, crispy crust that crackles under your teeth and retains sauce so nicely.
Neither method is bad per se. Indeed, if Serious Eats contributor Blake Royer taught us anything with his baked-versus-fried wing taste test, it’s that, depending on how you like your wings, these kinds can actually be better than their deep-fried counterparts.

Is it possible, though, to make Buffalo wings in the oven that are not “different but just as good,” but actually indistinguishable from the deep-fried version? (Hint: If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be writing this right now.)

Now, I’m well aware of the fact that, by definition, anything other than deep-fried wings tossed in a mixture of hot sauce and butter can never be called “Buffalo wings.” So if you’re the type of person who needs to point out authenticity rules like that, you might as well stop reading right now and find something more interesting to do.

I hear that the no-beans-in-chili folk and the no-cottage-cheese-in-lasagna crew are having an infidels’-recipe-burning party. Maybe you can crash.

For the rest of you, read on.

So what does it take to get skin crisp? There are a few factors involved: Dehydration and rendering: The crisp skin of a fried wing is made up of a hardened matrix of proteins, with some amount of liquid fat trapped in the interstitial spaces. Before this matrix can crisp, two things must happen: The water must be fully driven from it, and the subcutaneous fat from the chicken must liquefy, some of it draining out, some of it soaking into the meat, and some of it taking the place of the liquid. Frying, which takes place in an environment well above the boiling point of water, accomplishes this rapidly. Hot oil also transfers heat much more rapidly than hot air in an oven, causing this dehydration to proceed at an accelerated rate.
My first thought was simple: Why not fry them in the oven? To this end, I preheated a rimmed baking sheet, with a half cup of oil coating the bottom, in a 450°F (230°C) oven.

Once it was hot, I placed the chicken wings directly into the oil, where they immediately started sizzling, then placed them back in the oven. One flip and 25 minutes later, I had a batch of perfectly fried wings—along with an oven interior coated in grease, and an array of microscopic burns all along my arms from hot oil spitting out of the pan. What’s the point of oven-frying if it ends up even messier than stovetop frying? I’d need to find a better method.

For instance, adding a bit of extra baking soda to pancake batter—thereby making the batter more alkaline—improves its browning capabilities. Would the same trick work on my chicken wings? I baked five batches of wings on a rack set in a rimmed baking sheet: the first straight out of the package, the second tossed in salt before baking (in the hope that the salt would help draw out some of their moisture), one tossed in baking soda, one tossed in baking powder, and one soaked for two hours in a baking soda and water solution.

Using Chemistry to Improve Browning in Baked Wings
So what factors can affect browning? Well, temperature and time are the most obvious answers. But I knew that pH also had something to do with it.

My first step: set a benchmark by deep-frying and analyzing a batch of wings. As you can see, the key characteristics are the well-rendered, blistered, bubbly, crackly skin and the moist, fatty meat underneath. Without this ultra-crisp skin, the wings would quickly become saturated in sauce and soggy. At the same time, blistered skin boasts much more surface area than smooth skin, leading to better sauce adhesion and packing more flavor into each bite.

A baked wing, on the other hand, has a problem: Despite near hour-long cooking times for some recipes, the skin never blisters in quite the same way—it stays smooth and tight. What little sauce can adhere to it rapidly causes it to turn soft and soggy.

Browning: The Maillard reaction—the complex series of chemical reactions that create “brown” flavors and colors—occurs at a heightened rate at higher temperatures. In a pot of oil, this takes about 12 minutes. In an oven, it can take over an hour.

As you can see, there is something to the notion that adding baking soda to raise the pH (thus making the wings more alkaline) indeed does help with browning—the baking soda–treated wing in the center is significantly browner than the plain wing on the left. The baking powder–treated wing is also browner, though to a lesser degree. (Baking powder is made of baking soda mixed with a powdered acid, and its overall makeup is only slightly alkaline.)

Unfortunately, the baking soda wings had a very distinct metallic bitterness that immediately eliminated them as an option. Baking powder was promising for its effect on browning, but did nothing to aid rendering or blistering.

What about a different cooking method? Would broiling work? Perhaps coating the wings in oil or butter in order to more efficiently transfer heat to them? What if I simply extended the cooking time until the damn things were crisp?

The goal? The steaming process supposedly helps some of the excess fat render out of the skin, decreasing the time they need to crisp in the oven. Also, when the hot wings are placed on a rimmed baking sheet fresh out of the steamer, their retained heat helps their moisture evaporate, leaving you with wings that are in fact drier than un-steamed wings fresh from the package. Very clever, Alton. I compared these wings to plain baked wings, and, for good measure, I also included a batch of wings that I’d given the Peking duck treatment: pouring a hot pot of boiling water over them prior to drying, supposedly to achieve similar goals.

I was very hopeful about this method—after all, hordes of internet followers blogging about their success can’t all be wrong, can they?

6 ounces (170g) elbow macaroni
Salt
6 ounces (180ml) evaporated milk
6 ounces (170g) grated mild or medium cheddar cheese, or any good melting cheese, such as Fontina, Gruyère, or Jack
Place macaroni in a medium saucepan or skillet and add just enough cold water to cover. Add a pinch of salt and bring to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently. Continue to cook, stirring, until water has been almost completely absorbed and macaroni is just shy of al dente, about 6 minutes.
mmediately add evaporated milk and bring to a boil. Add cheese. Reduce heat to low and cook, stirring continuously, until cheese is melted and liquid has reduced to a creamy sauce, about 2 minutes longer. Season to taste with more salt and serve immediately.
If you are willing to kick the total ingredients up to more than three, try a good dash of hot sauce, some mustard powder, or a little knob of butter stirred in with the evaporated milk.

These baked wings are less messy than their iconic fried counterpart, and taste almost indistinguishable. Air-drying the wings overnight helps them crisp up faster when you bake them, which corresponds to juicier meat in the end.
Baking powder adds surface area to the chicken wings, intensifying their crunch.
Anybody who thinks that a baked Buffalo wing is any healthier than the deep-fried real deal is about as delusional as Luigi thinking he’s got a shot with the Princess while Mario is still around.

A Buffalo wing is a piece of skin-coated, bone-in chicken fat that’s deep-fried and doused in butter before being dipped in mayo, blue cheese, and sour cream. It’s fat on fat on fat on fat on fat on fat on fat. Is taking one of those fats out of the equation really going to make a difference? Unlikely. Want to allay your unfounded guilt? Load up on negative calories by eating an extra celery stick or two and call it a day.

That said, there is a large percentage of the home cook population that’s hesitant to heat up a few quarts of oil in their kitchens. (I’d be willing to wager my negligible income that the Venn diagram of people scared of frying and people who own well-seasoned cast iron woks looks like two non-overlapping circles.) It’s a group of people who have had to be content with one of two categories of “oven-fried” chicken wings. Blistering: As the chicken cooks, small bubbles of air or water trapped in the skin rapidly expand due to the heat. As this happens, it causes small, protein-reinforced bubbles to form. Some of these bubbles are lucky enough to simultaneously finish cooking and hardening as they form, increasing the skin’s surface area and creating the familiar nooks and crannies on a well-fried wing.
So clearly, in order to achieve baked-chicken-wing perfection, my goal should be to find ways to increase the rate at which all three of these reactions occur.

Stir it into soup. Like peanut butter, tahini works well as a flavor-booster and thickener in soups.

Have Main Course Baba Ghanoush. Roast a baby eggplant in the oven, until soft. Combine 2 tablespoons tahini with a clove of crushed garlic, lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste. Cut a slit in the eggplant and spread tahini inside for a kind of deconstructed baba ghanoush.

Dip raw veggies in it. For a simple snack, reach for tahini instead of ranch dressing next time you’re looking for a dip for crudités. Add lemon juice, salt, and a dash of pepper or hot sauce for extra flavor.

Spread it on toast. On whole wheat bread, perhaps with a little honey or agave syrup, tahini can be part of a balanced breakfast.

Drizzle it on falafel. For a no-stress summer meal, warm up store-bough frozen falafel and stuff it a pita. Thin out your tahini by adding add a few tablespoons of hot water and lemon juice and then drizzle it over the sandwich.

Irecently shared a novel use for peanut butter, as a replacement for tahini in hummus. Some commenters said they were relieved that they wouldn’t need to keep stale old tahini around in the cupboard anymore. But one tahini-loving reader suggested that the real problem was that everyone needs a few more ideas for how to use tahini.

Most people know tahini, a sesame seed paste with a consistency similar to peanut butter, as an ingredient in hummus and baba ghanoush and… not much else. But tahini is full of potential. It has a delicate roasted sesame flavor without the sweetness that is common to many nut and seed butters. There are plenty of ways to use tahini—so don’t let yours go to waste. Here are eight simple ideas for making the most out of the next can of tahini you purchase.

1. Dip raw veggies in it. For a simple snack, reach for tahini instead of ranch dressing next time you’re looking for a dip for crudités. Add lemon juice, salt, and a dash of pepper or hot sauce for extra flavor.

Use it to make Tarator sauce. Tarator is a little-known but much-loved multipurpose sauce that’s particularly tasty for dipping grilled chicken or steamed vegetables. Add 4 cloves minced garlic to 1⁄2 cup tahini, 1⁄2 cup lemon juice, and 1⁄4 cup parsley. Pulse in a food processor until combined.

Dress your salad with it. Give your balsamic dressing a break and try a tahini-based salad dressing instead. For an easy recipe, combine 1⁄2 cup tahini and 1⁄2 cup olive oil with 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar, 2 teaspoons of lemon juice, and 2 teaspoons of grated ginger in a blender. Drizzle over your greens and enjoy.

Make a double sesame burger. Why should the bun get all the sesame love? Tahini is super as a mild condiment on meats. Use it straight or enhance with a little lemon juice and smoked paprika and spread it on your burger. Some feta and cucumbers would complete the Mediterranean theme.

Stir it into soup. Like peanut butter, tahini works well as a flavor-booster and thickener in soups.

While I think it’s likely that the bagel is a descendant of ka’ak, the most relevant insight of the journey of this ring-shaped bread through history is that it isn’t uncommon for people to adopt the foods of those they interact with and to evolve those foods in unique ways. While ka’ak uses sugar water to ensure sesame seeds adhere to its exterior, bagels use the latent moisture and heat from boiling or an egg wash to add a wide variety of textures and flavors to their crusts, whereas simit opts for the grape syrup known as pekmez to ensure that sesame seeds (or poppy, or flax) stick. The processes are similar, yet different, used to the same ends but producing vastly different flavors and textures, and these few examples don’t even cover the many different ways in which each of these breads have been enjoyed for centuries. Innovation and tradition need not be mutually exclusive.

There are other breads that are both similarly shaped and bear the trace of Arab influence. Girde naan, a bread which looks identical to the present-day bagel that’s still baked by the Muslim Uigurs of northwestern China, is another possible descendant of ka’ak, given that Islam flourished in China during the Middle Ages, when Arab maritime traders had a monopoly on the spice trade.

And simit, the Turkish “sesame bagel,” has a similar story. In the 15th century, the Ottoman Turks were the dominant power across Southeastern Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa. During that time, their court cuisine relied on Kitab al-Tabikh, which, after being translated by Muhammed bin Mahmud Şirvani, the court physician of Sultan Murad II, and embellished with a few recipes of his own, formed the core of the first Ottoman cookbook.

The common thread between these similarly shaped breads, of course, is their proximity to spheres of Arab influence, whether they were trade routes or areas conquered by Islamic empires. In essence, obwarzanek, tarallo, girde naan, simit, and bagels are examples of culinary fusion, which is as old as cuisine itself. Centuries of conquest, migration, and trade have allowed culinary traditions to meld and evolve, both naturally and by force.

It raised the question: Does the bagel really have Arab origins?

In her book The Bagel, Maria Balinska tracks the origin of the bagel to Bona Sforza, an Italian woman from Bari who arrived in the royal Polish city of Krakow in 1518 to become queen. It’s also in Krakow, according to Leo Rosten’s The Joys of Yiddish, that the first written mention of bagels was found in 1610 Jewish community ordinances. But bagel-like bread was not new to Poland. Food historian Maria Dembinska* traces the first written mention of a ring-shaped bread made of wheat flour that was boiled before baking—referred to as obwarzanek—to Polish royal family accounts from 1394.

Dembińska Maria, and William Woys Weaver. Food and Drink in Medieval Poland: Rediscovering a Cuisine of the Past. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.

So where could Arab influence fit in? Well, for that, we’ll have to go back to the Middle Ages.

As we cook from other cultures, as we adapt dishes to suit different palates, and as we celebrate culinary diffusion, it is our responsibility to do the research and to highlight the origins of dishes in order to preserve their history with integrity. So before we rename ka’ak al Quds (literally, “ka’ak of Jerusalem”) “Jerusalem sesame bagels” in an effort to mainstream them, it might serve us better to learn of and honor the inspiration behind the bagel to begin with.

Does recognizing this origin detract from the bagel’s celebrated position in American Jewish cuisine or its own unique history? Not at all! The bagel may be steeped in Arab influences, and it may in fact have a richer history than is commonly known or understood, but the bagel and its ancient precursors share a history that simply confirms the importance of cross-cultural interaction, immigration, acceptance, and respect. So the next time you take a look at a bagel’s tight crumb and the scattering of whatever its seasoned with across its burnished surface, what you’ll see is the product of the intertwined histories of cultures and religions, one distinctive branch in the evolution of an ancient bread.

The possibility first presented itself when I came across a recipe for a kind of ka’ak in the 13th century Arabic cookbook Kitab al Wusla ila al Habib, one of the earliest cookbooks on record in the world, in which the dough is shaped, boiled, then baked. The chapter opens, “We begin with several kinds of simple bread, the accompaniment to every meal. First, ka’ak, which are of several varieties.” It ends by saying, “plain ka’ak are too well known to need describing,” implying not only that these were common breads, but also ones that had been made for so long and hence were so well known that they needn’t be explained. Indeed, ka’ak is referenced in the oldest Arabic cookbook on record, the 10th century Kitab al Tabikh, without much explanation, as a staple of the cuisine.

You can even see this in ka’ak. While that ancient recipe calls for boiling then baking the dough, the most popular ka’ak across the Middle East today isn’t boiled before baking; ancient ka’ak recipes call for kneading seeds and flavorings into the dough itself, while present-day ka’ak al Quds uses a sugar water solution to attach the sesame seeds that are the most commonplace seasoning.

Between the sixth and ninth century, Arabs secured control of the entire southern Mediterranean coastline. In 652 AD, an Arab fleet defeated the Byzantine navy off the coast of Alexandria and established bases for their incursions into the Italian mainland and Sicily. In 841 AD, the Arabs conquered Bari on the Adriatic coast and, from there, took control of the Alpine passes connecting Italy with the rest of Western Europe, ultimately creating an empire in southern Italy that lasted about 200 years.

Bari became the Arabs’ principal stronghold, a base from which they not only influenced regional cuisine, but also the cuisine of the areas all along their expansive trade routes. Unsurprisingly, the Puglia region, of which Bari is the capital and from where Queen Bona Sforz of Poland hailed, happens to be the Italian home to tarallo, a boiled then baked ring-shaped bread.

In addition to this clue to where the ring-shaped bread might have entered the Polish kitchen, it’s relevant to note that rye was historically the dominant grain/flour in eastern Europe. And yet, the Polish obwarzanek was made from wheat flour, a grain native to the Eastern Mediterranean, which archeological evidence indicates was probably first cultivated in the southern Levant. From other records, we know Arabs were responsible for spreading wheat to areas they traded with or conquered during the expansion of their empire.

Ancient cookbooks suggest the bagel may have roots in the the Arabic world. Iambled down the cobblestone steps to the Damascus Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem countless times as a child, offering the boy driving the ka’ak cart two shekels for a sesame ka’ak and some za’atar wrapped in newspaper scraps. If I wanted to treat myself, I bought the ka’ak from the oldest bakery in the city along with some falafel and hay-roasted eggs.

It never occurred to me as a child that the delicious, if commonplace, treat, sometimes called a “Jerusalem sesame bagel,” might have a rich history, nor did it occur to me later in life that the ring-shaped bread might have anything to do with other, similarly shaped breads. But an examination of ancient Arabic cookbooks suggests that ka’ak may in fact be the precursor of the bagel.

There were several unique iterations of ka’ak in Kitab al Wusla ila al Habib, and excited as I was for this glimpse into the past of my preferred childhood bread, I was startled to find the variation for the boiled then baked rings, since that process is identical to the one for making bagels.

Ingredients
1 broccoli head, cut into florets
2 servings of noodles
2 bell peppers, cut into thin slices
1 tablespoon of sesame seeds
2 spring onions, sliced
Handful of roasted cashews
2 tablespoons of brown rice miso paste
2 tablespoons of smooth tahini
2 tablespoons of sesame oil
Juice of 1 lime
Olive oil
Pinch of salt
method
Cook the noodles according to the instructions on the pack. Once cooked, drain and place in a large mixing bowl.
Preheat the oven to 200C, fan setting.
Place the broccoli florets onto a baking tray and drizzle with olive oil and salt. Cook for 10-15 minutes until the broccoli is charred. Once cooked, remove from the oven and add to the mixing bowl with the noodles.
In a small bowl, mix together the miso paste, tahini, sesame oil, lime juice and a pinch of salt, until a smooth dressing forms.
Add the sliced peppers, sesame seeds, cashews and spring onions to the bowl with the noodles and broccoli, before adding the dressing. Mix well to ensure everything gets coating.
Spoon the noodle salad into two bowls and top with another sprinkle of sesame seeds, spring onions and cashews.

Lo Mein Noodles?
There are many kinds of noodles you can use for stir-fries like this. Lo mein noodles come in a variety of diameters but are typically made with wheat.

In most supermarkets, you can find the fresh noodles in the chilled section of the grocery store, but at a minimum, they will have a dried noodle that you can find in the Asian section. For stir-fry noodles, I recommend using a thicker noodle, not the super thin noodle that you might find in a ramen package.
WHAT IS IN LO MEIN SAUCE?
I keep the sauce for this recipe very simple, but it still has plenty of flavor. It’s a mix of the following:

Hoisin sauce
Soy sauce
Sesame oil
Water
I like to make a bit more sauce for Veggie Lo Mein than in my Chicken Lo Mein recipe, because there is more volume with the veggies. A little more sauce helps tie everything together.

It isn’t a KBBQ party without sauces! The table needs sauces and seasoning so everyone can customize to their hearts content.

Ssamjang: This translates to wrap sauce and that’s exactly what it is, sauce to put on your ssam/wrap. It’s made up of soybean paste/doenjang, hot pepper paste/gochujang, sugar, green onions, garlic, toasted sesame oil, and toasted sesame seeds. Every one has their own recipe so don’t be afraid to riff and adjust to what you like. Ssamjang is savory and sweet and touch spicy and really, really good.
Toasted sesame oil: A little dipping bowl of toasted sesame oil is a pro-move. Use this, with a bit of salt sprinkled on top when you want to really taste the pure flavors of the meat. I love it with pork, especially pork that hasn’t been marinated.
Salt: Just a little dish of salt for sprinkling onto the un-marinated meats to bring out their meaty flavors. Flakey sea salt is extra luxe.
Toasted sesame seeds: A sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds can add an extra hit of savory nuttiness to your ssam.