› Browse Recipes › Chicken Wings for Business: Cuts, Brine, Poaching, and Storage

by Victor Heredia

technique easy Peruvian

Chicken Wings for Business: Cuts, Brine, Poaching, and Storage

A complete foundational technique tutorial for preparing chicken wings at restaurant scale: how to cut two styles of wings, brine them correctly in a 10% salt solution, poach them in a concentrated short stock (caldo corto) with vegetables, and store them portioned in refrigeration. This is the master prep method used across all Victor Heredia wing recipes.

20m Prep

25m Cook

2h 15m Total

4 Servings

technique wings brine salmuera short-stock caldo-corto poaching food-storage restaurant-prep business mise-en-place food-safety alitas victor-heredia master-cook foundational

Ingredients

brine

1500 ml water (for brine) (1.5 litres)
150 g coarse salt (for brine) (10% of water weight — 100 g per litre)

main

1057 g chicken wings (whole) (cut into two styles — see steps)

pantry

ginger powder (kion en polvo) (optional pantry spice for some wing preparations) opcional
onion powder (must be good quality with real onion flavor) opcional
garlic powder (golden color indicates quality) opcional
hondashi (dashi stock powder) (for acevichada and oriental wing preparations) opcional
cayenne pepper powder opcional
industrial mayonnaise (or homemade pasteurized mayonnaise) opcional

short stock

1500 ml water (for short stock) (1.5 litres, started cold)
50 g onion (white or red, roughly chopped)
100 g carrot (roughly cut; use caution when cutting)
10 g garlic cloves (smashed (chaf))
40 g celery (roughly chopped)
4 g white peppercorns (whole)
10 g salt (for short stock) (add carefully — the brine-soaked wings already carry salt)
wing tips (punta de alitas) (trimmed wing tips; added to stock from cold to extract flavor) opcional

storage

virgin plastic bags (for portioned storage — 6, 8, 10 or 12 wings per bag)

Steps

1

Cut the wings. Style 1 (classic): cut off the wing tip (discard or save for stock) and separate at the joint into drumette and flat. Style 2 (larger / business): remove the tip and also cut off the thin joint section, leaving only the two main meaty pieces.

Consejo: Style 2 yields larger, more impressive pieces for business. Victor recommends Style 1 aesthetically but says Style 2 makes more commercial sense.

~10 min
2

Prepare the 10% brine: dissolve 150 g of salt in 1.5 litres of water (100 g salt per litre). Submerge the cut wings completely. Brine for exactly 1 hour and 30 minutes maximum — do not exceed 2 hours or the wings will over-salt with no remedy.

Consejo: The 10% brine serves three purposes: (1) rehydrates the protein, recovering moisture lost since slaughter; (2) seasons the meat evenly throughout; (3) purges myoglobin, blood residues, and surface bacteria.

~90 min
3

While wings brine, prepare the short stock (caldo corto): put 1.5 litres of cold water in a pot. Add the wing tips, 50 g onion, 100 g carrot, 10 g smashed garlic, 40 g celery, and 4 g white peppercorns — all from cold. Bring to a boil and cook for 10 minutes (expansion cooking — flavors migrate from vegetables into the stock).

Consejo: Use a neutral stock without herbs like thyme, oregano, or rosemary — those are for stronger preparations. This neutral base works for all wing styles.

~15 min
4

After 10 minutes, remove the vegetables and wing tips from the stock (they have given their flavor). Season the stock with 10 g of salt — taste carefully since the brine-soaked wings will add salt as they cook.

Consejo: Save the cooking stock — it is used in lemon pepper sauce, acevichada sauce, and other preparations.

~2 min
5

Remove the wings from the brine — do not rinse. Add them directly to the hot short stock. The stock should barely cover the wings (do not use excess liquid — a concentrated stock is the goal). Cook until wings are firm when pressed — no mioglobina (pink juice) should run out when squeezed.

Consejo: Test doneness by pressing the wing between two fingertips. If firm = cooked. If soft = still raw in the middle. Cooking time depends on altitude — test by feel.

~20 min
6

Turn off heat. Remove the wings and allow them to cool to below 3°C within 30 minutes (use a blast chiller if available). Do not store hot wings.

Consejo: Rapid cooling below 3°C is a food safety requirement. A blast chiller is the ideal tool for a food business.

~30 min
7

Portion the cooled wings into clean virgin plastic bags — decide your serving size (6, 8, 10, or 12 wings per portion). Press out excess air and fold the bag closed. Place inside a food-grade container. Refrigerate for up to 3 days.

Consejo: For service: take one bag from refrigerator, deep fry the wings just to color (3–4 minutes) — they are already cooked. This is how restaurant-speed service is possible.

~5 min

Cultural Context

Victor Heredia's Master Cook channel is dedicated to teaching standardized, scalable recipes for Peruvian food entrepreneurs. This video introduces his entire chicken wing series by teaching the foundational prep technique. The philosophy — brine first, poach in concentrated short stock, store portioned — is designed so a restaurant can receive a wing order in 3–4 minutes (just a quick fry to color) instead of the 15 minutes it would take from raw. This approach reflects the speed and efficiency demands of Peruvian street food and restobar culture.