This City Chicken Recipe is a really easy and delicious recipe! I first had city chicken ages ago when my sister would cook it for her family. I love it because the pork ends up so tender. When I was growing up we did not have much pork for dinner. When we did have pork it was not very tender. This may be why I love this recipe. You can use most cuts of pork but I prefer to use boneless western ribs. They are usually on sale and easy to work with.
What is city chicken?
City chicken is not chicken at all it is made from pork. The city chicken recipe is a Cleveland classic with Polish and Ukrainian origins. It was first made pre-depression when chicken was expensive and hard to come by. Families used pork and veal in the first city chicken recipes. These were the scraps left over from the week or what scraps they could find.
Breading for the city chicken recipe
To bread the skewered pork cubes, set up your breading station: place each of the flour, egg mixture, and bread crumbs in separate shallow bowls. They should be lined up as if on an assembly line. First, place a skewer in the flour and cover well. Shake off any excess flour and then dip the flour skewer in the egg mixture and cover well. Next, take the same skewer and cover with bread crumbs and place on a plate. The plate needs to be big enough to hold all of the breaded skewers. Repeat with the other skewers until all are breaded.
The breading station works great if you keep one hand for the dry ingredients and one hand for the wet. I try to keep this in mind but I usually make a mess of it.
Browning the city chicken
Browning the city chicken is key for them to come out looking great from the oven in my opinion. The breadcrumbs will brown in the butter in the skillet. The baking time in the oven will allow the juices from the pork to combine with the breading to make them golden brown and delicious!
I hope this city chicken recipe becomes a family favorite of yours! Try the city chicken recipe with the broccoli ramen recipe! Chicken cakes are another family favorite recipe!
This is just one of the great dinners I have on my site. Click here to try out some more!
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 pounds of boneless western ribs cut into 1 1/2 to 2 inch cubes
- 3 tablespoons of butter
- 6 7-inch skewers
- 2 cups of bread crumbs
- 2 eggs plus 2 tablespoons of milk combined
- 1/4 cup of flour
- 1 teaspoon each of sea salt cracked black pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder combined together.
Instructions
- To bread the skewered pork cubes, set up your breading station: place each of the flour, egg mixture, and bread crumbs in separate shallow bowls. First, place a skewer in the flour and cover well. Shake off any excess flour and dip the flour skewer in the egg mixture and cover well. Then take the same skewer and cover with bread crumbs and place on a plate. Repeat with the other skewers.
- Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F.
- Place butter in a skillet over medium high heat. Once butter is melted, place breaded skewers in the skillet and sprinkle the top of the skewer with seasoning mixture. Be careful not to crowd the skillet.
- The goal is to brown each side of the skewered pork cubes before finishing them in the oven. You can add more butter if needed to finish the browning.
- When skewered pork is finished browning, place in a 9 x 13 pan. Be careful not to crowd the pan. Place in a preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes or until pork reaches 165 degrees F.
