You must possess cooking skills. You have to have experience in the kitchen. You should pay attention to detail. You must have intuition. It’s essential to be calm in the face of failure.

Lesleigh Landry possesses all of the above.

Julia Child’s famous quote: “The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you’ve got to have a what-the-hell attitude.”

Julia’s words speak to me. The fear of failure trumps the pleasure of testing recipes for me. I don’t take a failure well. I have floating anxiety and I take it personally when a recipe doesn’t work.

On the upside, I’m creative, a maverick and I think outside the box. The downside is I’m highly sensitive and a worrier.

Lesleigh is a chef, recipe tester, recipe developer and a food stylist. She’s the ideal person to pursue this fraught profession. She doesn’t take failure personally.

We’ve collaborated together for decades on and off. Lesleigh and I joined forces recently – to perfect home-cooked chicken wings.

I’ve been addicted to chicken wings since the 1980s. They are the perfect food – salty, spicy, crunchy and crispy – all the attributes in a food I love. In addition, you have to eat them with your hands.

My first full-time job as a food journalist was at the Toronto Sun. It was a jolly newsroom and I learned on the job. I joined with my colleagues once a week after work at the nearby bar Crooks (it closed several years ago) to eat chicken wings. They were excellent.

My dining highlight is now ordering one pound of mild Buffalo wings at Duff’s Famous Wings on College St. in downtown Toronto. It was my eating epiphany and now is a dining ritual.

I visited the Anchor Bar in Buffalo several years ago – the birthplace of chicken wings and the result of a happy accident. 

Lesleigh tested seven chicken wing recipes – four of them were baked, three of them were deep-fried. The latter – no surprise – were better by a smidge. Btw, I devised the Blue Cheese Dip at the end.

Most grocery stores sell split chicken wings into two parts: drumettes and flats. Here are the two winning recipes we chose – one baked, one fried.

Baked Buffalo Chicken Wings

Adapted from a recipe from Alton Brown on the Food Network website. Steaming the wings renders some of the fat out of them, making the skin crisper when you later bake them. Clear space in the refrigerator large enough to fit the large baking sheet before you begin cooking.

2 lb (1 kilo) split chicken wings
¼ cup each: Frank’s RedHot Sauce and butter
1 clove garlic, finely minced
½ tsp salt

Line large baking sheet with paper towel. Spray large cooling rack with nonstick spray; place over prepared baking sheet.

Set steamer basket over pot three-quarters full of water; bring to a boil. Add chicken wings to steamer basket in an even layer. Cover basket, reduce heat to medium and steam for 10 minutes.

Remove wings from the steamer basket; carefully pat dry with paper towel. Place on prepared cooling  rack, spacing well apart. Chill uncovered for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 425F.

Replace paper towel under cooling rack with parchment paper. Bake wings for 40 minutes, flipping them over halfway, or until golden brown and cooked through. When wings are almost done, heat Frank’s RedHot Sauce, butter, garlic and salt over medium heat, whisking, until butter is melted and mixture is blended and heated through.

Transfer wings to heatproof bowl; pour sauce over and toss to coat. Serve immediately with celery sticks, carrot sticks and blue cheese dip, if desired.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Fried Buffalo Chicken Wings

We slightly preferred these fried wings. Adapted from a recipe from the Allrecipes website. The spiced flour coating “bulks up” the wings so they look much larger when cooked than do chicken wings without a flour coating; it also helps the sauce adhere to the cooked wings. If you do not have a deep fryer, use an open wok and a deep fry thermometer; fish the wings out with a metal spider. Do not fry too many at a time or overcrowd the fryer or wok or it will cool down the fat too much and impede frying.

½ cup all-purpose flour
¼ tsp each: cayenne pepper and paprika
¼ tsp salt
2 lb (1 kilo) split chicken wings 
Vegetable oil
¼ cup each: Frank’s RedHot Sauce and butter
Pinch garlic powder
Pinch freshly ground black pepper

In large bowl, whisk together flour, cayenne, paprika and salt. Add wings; toss to coat. Cover bowl and refrigerate for 1 hour. Reserve flour mixture in bowl.

Add oil to deep fryer’s fill line, following fryer instructions; heat oil to 375F. Line large baking sheet with paper towel.

Remove wings from refrigerator; toss once more in flour mixture. Open fryer and arrange fry basket in the lifted position. In batches, shake excess flour from wings and place in basket – most fryer baskets hold about 8 pieces. Lower basket into hot oil and close fryer lid; fry for 8 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through. Open fryer, lift fry basket and let it drip for a moment; remove basket and turn cooked wings onto paper towel.

Repeat with remaining wings. Discard any remaining flour mixture. When last batch of wings is frying, heat Frank’s RedHot Sauce, butter, garlic powder and pepper over medium heat, whisking until butter is melted and mixture is blended and heated through.

Transfer wings to heatproof bowl; pour sauce over and toss to coat. Serve immediately, with celery sticks, carrot sticks and blue cheese dip, if desired.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.

My Blue Cheese Dip

I bought Danish blue cheese – it is crumbly and has good flavour. If you like the dip chunky, don’t overmix. You can substitute storebought dip and storebought blue cheese dressing.

½ cup crumbled blue cheese
½ cup mayonnaise
½ cup sour cream
1 tbsp lemon juice

In bowl, mix all ingredients until combined.