The Secret Skewer

Even if it’s a grey, chilly, kind of rainy day, the Fourth of July really ought to involve grilling. So yesterday I made chicken spiedies and grilled corn. I don’t know if I can call spiedies vintage cookery since I got the recipe from the June/July 2009 issue of Cook’s Country, but hey, Wikipedia says the spiedie got its start back in the 1920’s. Plus it’s obscure enough to qualify. The introduction in Cook’s Country called them “upstate New York’s best-kept secret”. I agree, since I grew up in upstate New York and I’d never heard of them.  They are skewers of grilled chicken that you slide off into a bun for a sandwich.

Cook’s Country is the slightly larger format magazine with color photos from America’s Test Kitchen, the same people behind the decidedly black and white Cook’s Illustrated. Cook’s Country features a bit more down-home fare: more BBQ ribs, less Chicken Kiev, but it still has the signature Christopher Kimball introduction about catching fireflies and chatting with crusty old Vermonters, and the OCD level of testing : Vanity Fair paper plates are better at weight bearing, but Solo has the advantage in spill prevention. The recipes follow the inevitable Cook’s Illustrated pattern. There’s an introduction outlining the glorious history of the dish, then the slightly longer section detailing what has gone wrong and how all the recipes they’ve found fall short: “I wasn’t surprised that my first batch of spiedies tasted pickled. Worse, the chicken was grainy and chalky, as if it had been overcooked.” Next the goals are laid out and the steps in the testing process, including the dead ends are described, before the recipe itself is presented.

The spiedie recipe is relatively uncomplicated for the Test Kitchen people. It does call for fresh basil and dried oregano. Most people just use dried herbs because it’s easier, while some people insist that fresh are always superior and should be used whenever possible. The Test Kitchen goes further to assert that fresh and dried are two different things and thinks of each distinctly. I wouldn’t argue with them, but my basil plants are still only knee high to a grasshopper, so I reached for the jar of dried basil. On the other hand, we were out of dried oregano, but had plenty of fresh, so I chopped up some of that, and some parsley, why not? Actually there might have been a jar of oregano in the cupboard, but I couldn’t find any. Matt, for some reason, refuses to alphabetize the spices.

In any case their recipe has it all over one I found on the internet which just called for marinating the chicken chunks in a bottle of spiedie marinade. I’m not against store-bought marinades, but if I could find spiedie marinade in the store, I’d bet my set of skewers it’s got directions printed on the bottle. Plus where’s the sauce? I don’t know if it’s traditional, and I don’t care, but the mayonnaise based sauce you make in step one of the Cook’s Country recipe is the best part. Even sauce averse Matthew loves it. And it gives me a chance to use one of my collection of small pitchers.

To sum up: Chicken Spiedies have a New York History, are cooked on the grill, let me use specialized dishware, and make Matt happy. What more could I ask for? Oh yeah, they’re also super delicious.