I love Spur’s chicken wings, but the person who loves them more than me, is my 84-year old mom. When I take Babs out for lunch, there is just one place she wants to go: “Spur, my child for those irresistible chicken wings.” It is an easy choice and one that I do not mind because the triple combination of the crisp, fatty chicken skinned wings dunked in that delicate Durky sauce with its blue cheese creaminess makes me weak too.

So the other day we decided to make our own. Our first stop however was the Spur around the corner – armed with pen and notebook and our detective taste buds. We had to decipher each of the ingredients before we made our own attempt at these moreish wings. After dipping and dabbing we came to the conclusion that making the wings and the blue-cheese dip was the easy part. Something more tricky was the Durky sauce. After many test tastings and conferencing between ourselves, we worked out that garlic flakes, onion, vinegar, sugar, red pepper, paprika and a dash of salt were the fundamental elements of this sauce.

With our clandestine operation complete, we headed home with list in hand to test out our version of these wings and Durky sauce. After multiple attempts, I think mom and I came up with a version that could stand its own – albeit a homemade version of those famous Spur wings.

Homemade buffalo chicken wings
Serves 3-4 as a starter
12 chicken wings, cut in half at the joints
fine table salt
oil for deep frying

Blue Cheese Sauce
125 ml mayonnaise
125 ml sour cream
100 g blue cheese (crumbled)

Durky sauce
140 ml vinegar (white)
350 ml water
1.25 ml chilli powder
2.5 ml tabasco sauce (optional)
10 ml garlic flakes
15 ml onion, diced into small blocks
15ml sugar
5 ml salt
3ml paprika
2.5 ml maizena

Wings: Season the wings with salt. Deep fry in oil until golden brown. Remove from oil and drain excess oil on some paper.
Durky sauce: Mix all the ingredients in a pot and bring to the boil. Simmer for 5 minutes. Allow to stand for about an hour so that the garlic flakes can flavour the sauce.
Blue cheese sauce: Mix all the ingredients together.