<p>Okay, this time it’s not whole chicken but chicken wings.</p>
<p>My sister has a very fast and quick method where she just washes and seasons the chicken without marinade, bakes it for 15/25 minutes on 450/400 F and it comes out fine.</p>
<p>Last time I marinaded the whole chicken came out fine (I cooked it at 450F for 30 minutes, then 400F for 1 hour and 15 minutes) it was quite tasty and juicy – my girlfriend loved it. But I basically marinaded for 40-60 mins and it was not totally marinaded on the inside (the deeper parts were all white).</p>
<p>This time, I’m putting the herb and garlic marinade I pulled from the grocery store, and mixing it with various salad dressings (including creamy dressing in a 1:6 ratio) and hoping it will turn out well. I’m trying to be a bit stingy so I’m not using fresh herbs, but I mixed it with dried parsley and garlic salt. (Hopefully when the 3rd floor kitchen opens this week, I can use my basil paste in time for a Chinese New Year gathering we’re hosting.) </p>
<p>A few questions:</p>
<p>How much can you mess up a marinade by using the wrong type of dressing, if you’ve a good solid Italian base, etc.? How experimentative should I allow myself to be in the future?</p>
<p>Just how much marinade do you need anyway? When I used a whole chicken, I found myself using half a salad dressing bottle’s worth. Does your meat need to be soaking in the marinade, or does the meat just need to get coated with it? </p>
<p>Is it better to marinade in a solid pan (or tupperware) or in a ziploc bag? Is 2 hours of marinade decent for a make-up present (after a fight with a significant other), when the make-up present involves chicken wings (rather than a whole chicken)?</p>
<p>I’m unsure of cooking times. My current plan is to cook the wings at 350 F for 90 minutes. Any suggestions? Should I cook at 400F for the first half-hour perhaps? Is it a tradeoff between cooking time and convenience? e.g. Optimally if I wanted to make the best sort of wings, it would cook at 150 minutes at 300F? 200 minutes at 250F?</p>
<p>How much does adding marinade change the cooking time?</p>
<p>Also, I intend to fry some onions, garlic and ginger – what’s the best way to incorporate this into the chicken flavour?</p>