City Chicken

We all remember our childhood through the food. For every birthday, Ross and Elliott had the "Farro family birthday cake" -- and on St. Patrick's Day, my boys ate corned beef and cabbage to honor their Irish roots.

John was born and raised in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. His father was Sicilian, and his mother was Irish/Lithuanian. So he is a proud "Coal Cracker". That's what people from Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania call themselves. If you are a Coal Cracker -- you grew up eating things like halupkes, perogies and city chicken.

Growing up -- to honor their father, my boys ate lots of Italian, some Polish, and some Irish. (To honor their mother -- there were many boxes of macaroni and cheese and a lot of frozen pizza...)

In January -- Ross made Coal Cracker food for his Super Bowl parties. John was inspired...and hearing about Ross's party made him hungry for City Chicken. So, instead of blogging about corned beef & cabbage (which really doesn't require much of a recipe) -- I decided to write about City Chicken -- which is DELICIOUS...and SO MUCH MORE INTERESTING...

John started off by trimming the meat into bite size chunks...it's best if you have both a light meat (like chicken, rabbit or pork) and a dark meat (like venison or beef)...

THEN, poke the raw meat onto a stick -- light/dark/light/dark...

Then, do the triple dip -- flour, egg wash, panko crumbs...

Chill for a couple of hours...

Then, OF COURSE -- the city chicken must be fried....

We finish it off in the oven to make sure it's completely cooked through...

OH MY GOODNESS -- it is SO DELICIOUS.

Such a special treat!!

We made a huge batch. So after the frying off stage, we froze several packages. It'll be a quick meal at a later date.

GO COAL CRACKERS!!