I’ve been thinking about making buffalo wings ever since I found some chicken wings, and after also finding some fennel, thought it might make a nicer side than the traditional celery sticks. I went ahead and used my log of chevre in both parts of the meal; on the fennel and in the ranch dip for the wings, in which I used some of my buttermilk as well.

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I started with the fennel, using a recipe from Adventures in Cooking, slowly cooking sliced fennel in butter, olive oil, sugar, salt and pepper until soft and dark, then tossing it with lemon zest, anise seed*, garlic*, dried dill*, fennel fronds and goat cheese (which was too soft to crumble neatly as in the original recipe). While this was cooking I worked on the wings.

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Roughly following a recipe from delish.com, I cut up the chicken wings and soaked them for a while in buttermilk (not in the recipe, but it seemed like a waste not to, even if they wouldn’t be marinated very long), then tossed them in olive oil, garlic powder*, salt and pepper* and baked them at 400°F for about 50 minutes, flipping them halfway through.

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While the wings were baking I found a basic recipe for buttermilk ranch dressing and made a few substitutions, the main one being goat cheese instead of sour cream, blended it with an immersion blender and let the sauce rest in the fridge.

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I whisked together a mixture of hot sauce*, honey and butter on the stove and tossed the wings in the sauce, then broiled them for a few minutes.

This is definitely one of the best meals I’ve had in a while. The wings came out super crisp without being dry. The fennel is tender. The ranch is the best ranch I’ve ever had. Put goat cheese on your wings, folks.

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*store-bought items