CLEVELAND, Ohio – Ah, City Chicken. It sounds sassy, intriguing, sophisticated.
Thing is, it’s not a chicken dish, nor does it live some cosmopolitan cool lifestyle.
It does “taste like chicken” (dispensing with dad jokes early, folks!) and growing up, it was served with the sundry sides you’d expect from a chicken dinner: mash, gravy, a veg side, mac and cheese.
It’s one of those humble country dishes that Clevelanders know and love – yours truly included, thanks to my mom. It’s a Depression-era classic that at once impresses with its affordability and dazzles with its comfort-food deliciousness. That’s why it remains popular in many households.
The classic dish is also a staple outside of Cleveland in many other cities in the Great Lakes – Detroit, Pittsburgh, Buffalo and other small pockets where a robust Eastern European immigrant population landed generations ago.
Most importantly, it is a “Classic CLE” dish. So much so, celeb chef and CLE champion Michael Symon had an upscale version of City Chicken on his restaurant menus for a hot minute.
Urban legend has it the beloved dish was a pinch too pricey for its humble roots and was “86′d” fast (that’s restaurant slang for “nixed,” for your non-service industry folks reading).
As mentioned, City Chicken is not in fact chicken. Instead, cubes of pork or veal (sometimes both) are stacked onto wooden skewers and fashioned to resemble a drumstick chicken leg. Chicken was more expensive than pork and veal during the Depression era, so substitutes were used.
The skewered meat is usually dry-seasoned, dredged in beaten egg, then flour or breadcrumbs (sometimes both), and browned in a frying pan or skillet with a combo of butter and olive oil. Once the meat has browned nicely, skewers are typically transferred to the oven to bake.
Some people do this in a baking dish with gravy and veg together; some do not. But it can be a one-pan dish if you plot your course correctly. Bake until tender and you’ve got seriously good eats.
Alongside chipped beef, meatloaf and [Hoover Stew/Johnny Marzetti/goulash], City Chicken is the comfort food classic of my childhood. Bonus: there was also very little prep time needed to make it. This came in handy when mom was looking for something quick to make for dinner.
Mom wasn’t one to “heat up the kitchen” during the summer, but sometimes she’d make it in her electric skillet with the noisy crash-cymbal lid, those tasty skewers made their way into the rotation.
After spending the lion’s share of a summer day at the neighborhood pool or the long-gone Jaquay Lake or Wildwood Lake Park, this was a feast to come home to. Sunburnt, spaghetti arms and legs from swimming all day long and a plate of City Chicken. Man, now I’m hungry.
City Chicken
ingredients
- Pork and/or veal;
- Wooden skewers;
- Ingredients for breading:
- Flour,
- Egg,
- Bread Crumbs;
- Seasoning:
- Ideally seasoned salt (but if you don’t have it, just use regular kosher salt),
- Pepper; and
- Cooking (light) oil for frying.
How to Make
- Assemble the skewers: cut your meat into 1.5-inch squares and add 2 or 3 pieces onto a wooden skewer (cut off the skewers to fit the meat); season the meat on each side and prepare for breading.
- Breading: prepare 3 prep-dishes: one for flour, one for beaten eggs and one for breadcrumbs. Starting with the flour, cover the meat on each side (shaking off the excess), then place it into the egg mixture and cover on each side. Then finish it up by rolling it in breadcrumbs, on each side. Continue with all the remaining skewers.
- Frying: heat up your cast iron (or another heavy pan) skillet. Add cooking oil. Once the oil is hot, add breaded skewers into the skillet (don’t overcrowd them, cook in batches if needed). Fry the skewers on each side until golden brown and then transfer to a 350 F hot oven to finish up cooking (covered for 20 minutes and uncovered for 5 minutes). Serve and enjoy!
