Lime-y Salted Chicken

While Connie and I were in Eddyville, Kentucky we went to Echo Charlie's Bayside Restaurant, a nice but somewhat overpriced little eatery at the marina. The waitress recommended Bubba's Key West Salt Wings, cautioning that if we ate them we'd be puffy with water retention the next morning but we thought what the heck and ordered some anyway. I have to say that never in my life have I had chicken wings so good! Until I ate those wings, my all time favorite was My Way Wings, a recipe of my own creation and one suited to my particular tastes. And those still rock, by the way, but Bubba's Key West Salt Wings have snap and pizazz that are hard to beat! I'm not normally impressed with salty food and these wings were very salty with a definite lime and garlic taste that really appealed to me. I couldn't get enough of them even if they were horribly messy!

Connie and I figured we could make them at home or something very close at the least. By taste, we figured the wings are marinated in a mixture of butter, lime juice, olive oil, kosher salt, a lot of garlic, and some oregano. They definitely have something green in them as you can see in the picture below.




Okay, so maybe you can't tell much (the picture was taken with my cell phone) but try!

Today I decided to try to re-produce those wings but had no wings, nor did I have Kosher salt and massive amounts of garlic. Hindsight tells me I should have just waited until I had wings, Kosher salt, and more garlic! Instead, I used chicken thighs, a salt blend, and the garlic I had. I marinated 6 thighs for about thirty minutes in a mixture of:

1 stick melted butter
1 Tablespoon of olive oil
1 Tablespoon of crushed garlic
1 teaspoon of garlic pepper seasoning
15 twists of the Loretta Spicy Sea Salt grinder
1 teaspoon of dried oregano
juice of a large lime

Then I baked the thighs at 350 until done.



Here's the finished product - good chicken but not what I wanted.

The wings didn't taste like butter, salt, lime, or garlic! Obviously I didn't use enough of those ingredients but lordy, 1 stick of butter for 6 wings should be enough! Perhaps it was just that the seasonings were off but the wings were bland compared to those I ate in Kentucky.

I'm going to attempt this again but will have wings, a lot more garlic, more lime and Kosher salt on hand.

In the meantime, you might try this recipe, adjusting it to suit your family's tastes. As I said, it was good - it just wasn't what I wanted. If you try it, do let me know. And if you've eaten Bubba's Key West Salt Wings and have ideas on how to make a copycat, please let me know! I really can't see taking a vacation to Kentucky every time I crave them!