A Tale of Two City Chickens

The last time I was home, my mom, aunt, grandmother and I were sitting around the kitchen table discussing cooking and recipes (in classic 50's television show fashion). Somehow we got on the topic of city chicken. I may have brought it up as I had recently been thinking about making it, but had no idea how to make it (nor did I even know what meat was in city chicken). Now, I know it sounds silly, it IS called city CHICKEN. But I was sure that it wasn't actually chicken. And I was right. City chicken is actually pork (which is very deceiving, hopefully no one ever went over to my parents house on city chicken night who didn't eat pork). How a pork product took cover under our poultry friend's name, I'm not actually sure. I think I asked once and the answer was something like, the people on the farm didn't have a lot so they tried to make their pork taste like chicken like the rich city folk.

Now no one in my family has ever lived on a farm, so I'm still not exactly clear on whether or not that was a BS story, but believe it or not, wikipedia has an entry on it. I'm stunned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_chicken
..it says nothing about farm folk, but the idea is the same, so maybe it wasn't entirely a BS story...

So if you're still wondering what is city chicken exactly, essentially it is cut up bits of meat (my mom always made it with pork, but wikipedia seemed to think it could be any meat nugget) skewered on a stick, breaded and pan fried. Sounds simple, easy, and not really high class dining (obviously). But I remembered that it was always one of my favorites, so I really wanted to make it and see if it was really that good.

Which brings us back to my mom's kitchen table discussing how to make city chicken...

My mom and grandmother got into a HEATED debate over this, which was one of the funniest conversations ever, because the differences in their methodologies were very small. My aunt and I giggled about their argument for a good 5 minutes or so when finally my aunt cut them off and said that she thought they were really saying the same thing or something close to the same thing. Unfortunately I mostly remembered that they fought about it and not actually how they said to make it...but I did remember enough to make it tonight.

A few weeks ago I bought the skewers (I needed the shorter ones, although the long ones would work, I wanted it as authentic as possible), so I'd be ready whenever I wanted to make it. Tonight was finally the night. I pulled out the pork tenderloin to cut it up for breading. (yes, I realize this defeats the whole purpose...cheap meat made to taste good, but my mom said she uses tenderloin now) That was when Jeff walked into the kitchen and asked what was for dinner. When I explained to him what was for dinner he had a sad disappointed "what is she doing to my pork tenderloin" face, even when I quickly added that it was a childhood favorite of mine. He was definitely skeptical.

It was at this point that I realized that it would have been helpful if I would have listened to what my grandmother and mother said. Was it milk and then breadcrumbs? eggs and breadcrumbs? milk and eggs? flour first? no flour? all I could remember was that my mother would put them on the skewer first and then egg/milk them and then throw them into a bag with bread crumbs and let them sit, while my grandmother would put them on the skewer after breading and not let them sit. I guess that makes this a tale of three city chickens since I proceeded to do it my own way.

Not having a clue of how to actually make it, I decided to use one egg, a very hefty spash of milk and soak the pieces individually in a bowl (simply because that was easier than pulling out a large pan big enough to soak all of them already skewered) and then skewer them and then into a baggie with breadcrumbs. I didn't have time to let them sit post-breading, so I skipped that step.

I heated up a pan with olive oil and then realized this is probably a recipe that would be better with butter so I threw some of that in the pan too. I knew that my mom always sauteed them in a pan and then put them in the oven, so I cooked them a few minutes on each side and threw them into the oven in the pan. I checked them after a couple of minutes, they felt about medium so I took them out.

We dug hungrily into our dinner (city chicken + roasted sweet potatoes + salad) and I was afraid to try the city chicken (I think Jeff was still pretty skeptical himself) so I ate everything else off my plate. I was sure that it wouldn't be nearly as good as I remembered it. But I took my first bite and it was amazingly just as good as I remembered it. Jeff gave me his "this is good" look as he took a bite of the meat right off the stick. I reiterated "a childhood favorite" as he went for the third and final skewer from the kitchen. He was relieved to hear that this would become a more regular dinner meal for us.

Who would have thought that I could pull it off? So rarely do these kinds of meals taste just like I remember it as a kid, mostly because I think those types of favorite childhood recipes are primarily nostalgic. I'm also guessing that it doesn't actually matter how you make it, as long as there is breading and there is pork (at least if you want it to taste like the way my mom made it)...so mom and grammy: unfortunately, I think your argument was all for naught.

So it's not much of a recipe (clearly, you can do whatever you want to it and it'll taste good), but here's what I've got:
1/2 pound pork tenderloin, cut into ~1 inch cubes
1 egg
somewhere between 2-4 tablespoons of milk
~1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1 T olive oil
1 T butter (or 2 T butter, no oil)

Sprinkle the pork with salt and pepper. Somehow get the pork into the egg and then into the breadcrumbs (put it on a skewer first, then egg, or not, whatever, it doesn't matter). Heat oil and butter in pan and pre-heat oven to about 350 deg. Add the skewers to the pan and brown the pork on all sides (maybe 1-2 min per side) and then put the pan in the oven (make sure it's an oven safe pan) for about 5 - 10 minutes, until the pork gives just a touch for medium or is very firm for well done. I actually prefer it at room temperature (which may have actually been why it tasted so good, because it was the last thing I ate for dinner so it cooled significantly), so you can serve right away or wait until cooled a bit.

...and enjoy the chickenless city chicken!