Perth man’s chicken wing technique ‘freaks people out’

“I’ve never really wanted to be a food connoisseur, that’s not my thing, I’m a wedding photographer by trade,” he told news.com.au.

But the 30-year-old Perth man had always been a chicken wing fan and even picked up a unique way of eating them a couple of years back while visiting the United States.

“We were eating at a Varsity sort of bar and I looked at the wings, big fan of them, and decided to go, ‘how can I make these less messy and less of a chore?’

“And then I just said, why don’t you just pull the bones out.”

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Mr Mozhaev later learnt that other wing devotees ate this way – either by gripping the base of where the two wing bones join and ripping the meat off with his mouth or removing the two bones before digging into the wing.

But he found out that it was a “thing but not really a huge thing”, which is what prompted him to make a demo video earlier this year.

“I was with my wife and I was at a restaurant and they had wings, and I was like, ‘Oh cool, I’m going to do that bone thing but let’s make it a TikTok,’” he said.

“She recorded me doing it and then I left it, posted it and then an hour later had like 60,000 views and I was like, ‘what?’.”

While Mr Mozhaev already had a substantial following on TikTok, he didn’t expect his video on how to eat wings to blow up like it did.

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He’s followed it up with more clips showcasing his unique wing eating method, which has equal parts fascinated and amazed people.

“That is a talent and a gift,” one person wrote.

“I haven’t eaten meat in three years and yet I want chicken wings right now just watching you eat them,” another commented.

“This is one of those life hacks I never knew,” one person also commented.

“Was that magic? How in the world,” another shocked person wrote.

But the most pressing inquiry was: do you really eat the cartilage?

“This really grosses people out that watch, because they just can’t believe you eat the cartilage,” Mr Mozhaev said with a laugh.

“I’m originally from Russia I migrated here when I was seven … I would watch my mum eat the wings or the drumsticks and she’d eat right down to bone and there was not cartilage left or anything.”

He admitted cartilage is a “bit chewy” but he couldn’t get enough of it.

“The texture is a little bit different, it’s just a bonus bit for me but it absolutely freaks people out, especially when they fear the crunch on the video,” Mr Mozhaev said.

Mr Mozhaev has put his chicken wing eating skills on display in a new video where he has teamed up with Red Rooster to promote their new Spicy Buttermilk Wings, which are the fast food outlet’s buttermilk wings coated in a Sichuan sauce to give it an extra kick.

“They are up there with some of best wings I’ve had from a fast food restaurant,” he said of the new wings.

“I’m very picky with my food, it has to be cooked well and there has to be a decent amount of meat on there and they ticked all the boxes.”

How to eat chicken wings

The first step, according to Mr Mozhaev, is to make sure the wings are at an edible temperature.

“If you want to give it a try make sure the wings have cooled down a bit,” he said.

“You need to grip it hard enough to pull the wing out, the bone out.”

Once they’ve cooled down enough all you need to do is find the two bones “where they join together at the top of the cartilage” and separate them, Mr Mozhaev said.

Then I normally got for the big bone first because that’s the hardest to pull out, pull and twist,” he said.

“If it’s cooked well enough, it should just come off like butter.”