City Chicken

How about a bunch of raw meat for your Tuesday? Pretty gross....hang in here and it will get better. This is actually a really interesting recipe. And it uses one of Julia's favorite cooking technique's called braising. Back in the days before there were refrigerated trucks and all of those good cool things, chicken was very expensive. These were the days before there were big chicken companies like Purdue. Chicken spoils very fast and has to be frozen. Back then veal and pork were much cheaper. People that desired chicken but could not afford it created city chicken aka mock chicken legs. These consisted of cubes of veal and pork, alternated and threaded on a skewer to resemble a chicken leg.


I grew up eating city chicken and loved it. I don't know anyone that didn't like it. I hadn't made city chicken since I was kid. This is another one of those recipes that people short cutted and it became dreadful and then disappeared. I decided to revisit it. First you have to use cracker meal. It's not the same if you don't.


Set up a breading station. Put some eggs in a bowl and whisk them.


Flour, cracker meal and eggs.


Sprinkle each skewer with fresh cracked black pepper,


Sea salt,


Dried thyme,



Then roll it in flour to cover,


Cover the meat entirely.


Then roll it in the beaten egg.


Then coat it in cracker meal.


Make sure to coat the whole surface.


Brown these on all sides in a bit of olive oil and butter.


Keep turning until all sides are crunchy and brown.


That big lump of meat is starting to look better, and smell better too.


Place them all in the bottom of a heavy pot.


Pour chicken stock over them to cover half way up their sides.


Now they are ready to braise in a 300 degree oven for 2 hours.


I wanted to serve them with a simple rice pilaf. Melt 4 tablespoons of butter over medium heat.


Add a medium diced onion.


Add about 6 chopped mushrooms.


Some cracked black pepper.


About a teaspoon of salt.


And 3 cups of long grain white rice. Stir this for a few minutes.


Then add 6 cups of chicken stock and stir. Bring it to a boil, lower the flame to a simmer, cover and let cook about 25 minutes.




When the city chicken is ready remove it from the oven.


Stir some chopped fresh parsley into the pilaf.


And here you have it, city chicken served on rice pilaf.


The meat will just fall off the bone...err...the skewer. I can't even describe the taste. Though I can tell you it is quite delicious. And just like people eat cold fried chicken, these are really good cold.