Bookshelf - "Fowl Tips: My Favorite Chicken Recipes" (1984) by Wade Boggs

45 pp., paperback with plastic rings.

31 recipes, with tips for preparing, seasoning and cooking chicken

Here is the perfect convergence of baseball and cookbooks.

Back in 2014, I added one of the Holy Grails of baseball cookbooks to my collection: "Fowl Tips", the Wade Boggs chicken cookbook. Nothing but chicken recipes.  Yes, this was and still is an actual thing.

One of the legends attached to Boggs was that the Hall of Fame batting champ ate chicken before every game. In his own words:

"Chicken has been very good to me. It may sound strange, but I maintain that chicken has played a major part in the success of my baseball career.

"It all started back in 1977 when I was coming up in the minors... During spring training that year, I noticed something peculiar. On those days when I ate chicken before a game, I always got at least two hits... So when I started getting hits after eating chicken, I just naturally began eating more chicken. And I'll be doggoned if my batting average didn't continue to rise.

"Don't ask me to explain it. I won't even try. All I know is that now I eat chicken before every game we play."

And so was born Fowl Tips: My Favorite Chicken Recipes by the man whose twitter handle is @ChickenMan3010.

The book is scarce now and demands a new printing. I did a recent online search and the only copy I could find is from a seller who is offering a copy via Amazon with the asking price of $300.  That's cluckin' nuts!

After I was lucky enough to score a copy online, I immediately tried a bunch of the recipes.

The recipes are 30-plus-years-old, and very basic. Lots of grilling and frying.  Some offer a decent foundation to add and experiment with, others are more of a novelty than anything I would seriously serve to guests. You can decide which is which.

I'll keep an ongoing list of links to the recipes and photos that I posted below.

Barbecue Chicken Wings

Barbecue Chicken Wings by Wade Boggs - from "Fowl Tips: My Favorite Chicken Recipes" (1984)

RECIPE

2 lbs. chicken wings
1 bottle (18 oz) prepared barbecue sauce
1 cup honey
4 tbsp. butter

Preheat oven to 300.

Melt butter in skillet, brown wings on both sides. Drain on paper towel. Combine barbecue sauce and honey in deep mixing bowl using a whisk or fork. Dip each chicken wing into barbecue-honey mixture. Place wings in baking pan. Cover. Warm in 300 degree oven for at least one hour or until ready to serve.

I wrangled a copy of Wade Boggs' Fowl Tips years ago and have been working my way through his single-minded compilation of chicken recipes.  Here is the first of many that I'll be posting, with more to come.  

They say baking is better than deep frying - in fact, most things are better than deep frying - so here's a simple procedure for baked chicken wings.

This is more of a technique than a recipe, but a good way to use up some leftover barbecue sauce you have kicking around.  The honey and butter bring some sweet without any heat.  If you want to spice it up, or add another flavour note like smokey or garlicky, go ahead and use your own sauce of choice, or splash in some hot sauce, whatever.  The foundation for baked chicken wings is here, you can make it your own thing and enjoy with minimal effort.

Turkey Soup by Carl Everett - from "Crowding the Plate: Favorite Recipes of the Boston Red Sox" (2001)

RECIPE

turkey carcass
1 onion, quartered
3/4 teaspoon garlic salt
1 bay leaf
1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes
1 1/2 cups fresh carrots, diced
1 1/2 cups fresh celery, diced
3 chicken bouillon cubes
1 tsp. basil
1 tbsp. parsley
cooked rice or noodles

In a large pot place turkey carcass, onion, garlic salt and bay leaf; simmer for 2-2 1/2 hours.

Strain through cheesecloth and reserve broth; chill broth to remove fat.

Once the turkey is cool enough, break into bite size pieces.

Add can of diced tomatoes, vegetables, bouillon cubes, basil, parsley and turkey pieces; simmer.

Add cooked rice or noodles. [I went with rice.]

It's Thanksgiving weekend in Canada, and here's a thematic soup from Carl Everett -- member of the World Series-winning 2005 Chicago White Sox.

When Frank Thomas went down with injury for most of the 2005 season, Everett stepped up as the club's starting DH.

Everett is also known for holding some peculiar beliefs and turning them into memorable quotes, like this one:

"God created the sun, the stars, the heavens and the earth, and
 then made Adam and Eve. The Bible never says anything
 about dinosaurs. You can't say there were dinosaurs when you
 never saw them. Someone actually saw Adam and Eve. No one ever
 saw a Tyrannosaurus Rex."

Anyway... Everett played for a slew of different teams over his career including a stop in Boston, where he submitted this recipe for the 2001 Red Sox cookbook.

I made a couple of tweaks to this recipe. Since I didn't have a turkey carcass kicking around the kitchen, I picked up a smoked turkey leg from the local market. This infused the broth with an amazing smokey aroma. Turkey legs are huge, so there was the added visual amusement of imagining a pterodactyl leg simmering on the stovetop -- just for you Crazy Carl!

The second tweak was to replace the can of diced tomatoes (of which I am not a fan) with half a jar of spicy salsa. This gave the soup more flavour and a bit of kick as well.

One turkey leg plus the above ingredients produced a lot of soup for a Thanksgiving meal, or for freezing and enjoying during the winter. This is one that I will definitely make again.