City Chicken

When I was growing up my Grandma Donna used to make us City Chicken.  It was always the best meal of the year.  This year we decided to make City Chicken for our Christmas meal.  What is City Chicken you ask?  Well it is a combination of meat on a stick that appears to look like a chicken leg.  The funniest thing, is that there is no chicken in it.  Yep, City Chicken is pork and beef.

City Chicken
City Chicken

Serve it with mashed potatoes and all of your favorite sides.

City Chicken

  • 1 lb pork cubed
  • 1 lb beef cubed
  • 1 package saltines – crushed
  • 2 eggs
  • 20 wooden skewers cut to 6 inches in length
  • 3 cups hot water
  • 2 tbs chicken bouillon
  • 2 tbs beef bouillon
  • 1 tbs garlic
  • salt and pepper
  • 8 tbs butter

Alternating between the beef and pork, skewer the meat onto the wooden skewers.

Alternate the pork and beef on the skewer
Alternate the pork and beef on the skewer

Once you have all of the meat skewered, dip them in the egg wash and then coat with the crushed saltines.

City Chicken rolled in the crushed saltines
City Chicken rolled in the crushed saltines

Heat a large skillet or an electric fry pan to medium/high heat.  Then melt half of the butter into the pan.  Place the skewers into the pan and brown the meat on all sides.  When the pan starts to dry up, add more butter to make sure that all of the sides of the city chicken are nice and browned.

Brown the skewers in butter
Brown the skewers in butter

When browned, place the skewers into a dutch oven.  Layer them into the pan, making sure to place as many as you can in each layer.

Place 1.5 cups of hot water into two separate bowls.  Then dissolve the chicken bouillon in one bowl and the beef bouillon in the other bowl.  Then spoon a teaspoon of each of the bouillon onto each of the skewers.  Then pour the remaining bouillon into the pan.  Sprinkle the garlic over each layer of city chicken.

Pour the bouillon over the city chicken
Pour the bouillon over the city chicken

Place the cover onto the pan and place into a 300 degree oven for 2 hours.  After 2 hours, turn the oven to 350 degrees and cook for another 2 hours.

Bake the city chicken in the pan.  Make sure that the pan is covered.
Bake the city chicken in the pan. Make sure that the pan is covered.

Remove the city chicken from the pan and use the pan drippings to make gravy.  Serve the city chicken with mashed potatoes.

Rex

Rex is an avid griller, barbecuer and bacon enthusiast. He is the Pitmaster for the Rex BBQ competition team. Rex was also featured on the TV show American Grilled. If you have any questions or wish to have Rex decode your favorite dish, click on the ASK REX link in the menu above.

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4 thoughts on “City Chicken

  1. My Polish grandmother made City Chicken. I always thought it was a polish dish but didn't know why it was called city chicken — I think she used all pork.

    1. Cathy – There are a ton of varieties of city chicken out there. A couple use ground meat, but my family has always used cubed meat. Not sure of the origins of the recipe, but we have always had it on Christmas for as long as I can remember. -Rex

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