Air fryer chicken wings with a hot butter sauce

Mix the seasoning powder: salt, baking powder, ground cayenne, garlic powder and smoke powder.

With kitchen shears, cut each wing through the joints into drumette, flat and tip; freeze the tips for stock.

Toss two pounds of flats and drumettes with two tablespoons of the powder to coat; the salt pulls moisture out and it is reabsorbed as a micro brine.

Transfer the wings to a rack over a quarter sheet pan and refrigerate uncovered in the lowest section of the fridge at least eight hours, overnight or up to two days, until bone dry.

Put the cut-up butter, hot sauce, vinegar, brown sugar, cayenne, Worcestershire, wasabi powder, salt and dry mustard in a small heavy saucepan.

Over low heat, whisk until the butter is melted and everything comes together into a smooth sauce, then kill the heat.

Let the sauce cool 10 to 15 minutes, whisking when you walk past so it stays together; it sets solid in the fridge like a compound butter.

Cook one pound of wings at the machine's top temperature, 450 in the drawer model and 480 in the convection oven fryer, for nine minutes.

Once the machine is preheated, spray the wings with no-stick spray and load them.

Variation, in a rotating enclosure driven by four heat guns at level three: run 12 minutes, then turn the guns off for a three minute cool cycle.