I love chicken-and-waffle restaurants. They combine the best part of breakfast and dinner: waffles with sweet syrup and salty fried chicken. Who needs bacon with your waffles if you can have crispy fried chicken? Chicken and waffles are a perfect Sunday food — breakfast or dinner or any time of the day.

Waffle irons are available in Belgian (thick with deep pockets for butter and syrup) or American (thin with shallow pockets). Pictured here is a Belgian waffler. My waffle recipe contains yeast and I contend that once you eat a yeasted waffle, you will never eat any other kind — they are crisp on the outside and light and airy on the inside. The waffle batter must be mixed up the night before.

Waffles 

• 2 cups milk
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon yeast
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs

Mix together the milk, flour, yeast, sugar, and salt (I like to use the Danish dough whisk). Cover and let sit at room temperature overnight. Then whisk in the eggs and cook in a waffle machine until crispy. I use a #8 disher to portion the batter into the machine and a silicone spatula to remove the waffles. Makes about five double Belgian waffles. Yes, you can use the same batter for American-style waffles. Be sure to slather the waffles with Plugra butter and Grade B Maple Syrup. These waffles can be reheated and still taste delicious.

Instead of making traditional fried chicken to go with the waffles, I made Buffalo-style wings. Traditionally, the butter sauce is made with Frank’s, which is a mild hot sauce — which is an oxymoron, but I suggest adding cayenne pepper to pump up the taste. Don’t follow the cooking directions on Frank’s label, which suggests deep-frying the wings at 400 degrees for 12 minutes! Those wings would be charcoal, along with the rest of the kitchen. I fried the wings at 360 degrees for 4 minutes and they were crispy on the outside and perfectly cooked on the inside.

Buffalo wings are usually served with celery and blue cheese dip; the creamy sauce cools the mouth after the hot wing. I added blanched, cold green beans on top of romaine lettuce, which tasted delicious with the blue cheese sauce. Just to complete the chicken-and-waffle idea, I also made waffle potato chips. (Since the oil was already hot, why not fry a potato?) The waffle chips were delicious dipped in the blue cheese.

Chicken Wings

• 2-3 pounds chicken wings
• 2 cups buttermilk
• salt and hot sauce to taste 
• flour seasoned with salt and pepper
• vegetable oil for frying

The chicken wing has three joints. I removed the wing tip and used to make chicken stock. I also separated the other two joints. Mix together the buttermilk, salt, and hot sauce and soak the chicken for an hour. Drain. Roll the chicken in the seasoned flour. Heat the oil to 360 degrees and deep-fry the wings in batches (don’t crowd the oil) for about 4 minutes. Drain. Toss in butter sauce and serve immediately with lots of napkins.

Hot Butter Sauce for Chicken Wings

• ¼ cup white wine
• ½ cup butter
• 1/4 cup hot sauce, or to taste
• 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper, or to taste

Bring the wine to a boil and boil until reduced by half. Turn down the heat to a simmer. While whisking constantly, add the butter one tablespoon at a time. Finish with hot sauce and cayenne to taste. The sauce should be very spicy. Toss the wings in the sauce.

Blue Cheese Sauce

• 1/2 pound blue cheese
• 1/2 cup buttermilk

Place the cheese and buttermilk in a food processor and blend until smooth. Serve with celery sticks, blanched green beans, and lettuce.