Chicken Spiedini for the masses

I thought it only fitting that I should follow up a story about the bounteously heinous discovery in the kitchen crawl space with a recipe for one of our restaurants best selling, if not our signature, entree – Chicken Spiedini.

We brought this dish from a storied Italian eatery in Kansas City, Garozzo’s Ristorente, which built a bit of an empire on the back of this grilled, garlic-laden fowl. The first time I ate at the original location on 5th & Harrison, down near the KC City Market, the waiter suggested the Spiedini over a pasta dish I was tempted to order; I took his advice, and found that I’d never tasted anything quite like it. It was one of those seminal degustatory moments that jarred you into the realization that there was a whole culinary world beyond your mother’s meatloaf. Mr. Garozzo went on to open three more restaurants, including one in Wichita, KS, all of which were fueled by the success of his Spiedini. Chicken Spedini even wrought new, competitive restaurants from former Garozzo employees, including the original Garozzo’s chef who opened his own place, loudly proclaiming himself the inventor of the dish; he didn’t make it a year, while all of the Garozzo’s are still churning out Spiedini.

At The Riverside, we never claimed Chicken Spiedini as an original recipe, but gave due credit by referring to the dish on our first menu as ‘Chicken Spiedini a la Garozzo’. (I’m not certain what ‘a la’ means, but I’d seen it on a lot of other menus, and thought, ‘what the hell’.) I do steadfastly believe that our version was better than Garozzo’s; an opinion that was shared by numerous Kansas-Citians who had eaten the dish in both KC and at The Riverside. The only restaurant review that we ever received in the local paper, good or bad, was a one-line mention in a “What to do this weekend” column from the Sky-High Daily News entertainment writer, saying “try the Chicken Spiedini at The Riverside – it’s incredible!”

While it was immensely popular, it was also very labor intensive to prepare, and in our last few months of operation, down to a single chef, we decided to scrap the dish in favor of easier preparations. Make it at home, and you’ll get a feel for what our kitchen help had to do on a daily basis for the throngs (ok, maybe not throngs; if there had been throngs, we may yet still be in business) of dinner guests who ordered, and adored, Spiedini. I’m proud that we threw very little un-eaten food away at The Riverside, and when we did, never was it Spiedini.

Serves 4

2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts
¾ cup flour
¾ cup olive oil
2 tablespoons dried sweet basil
½ cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1 ½ cup bread crumbs (buy ‘em, don’t make ‘em)

AMOGIO SAUCE

¾ cup olive oil
¾ cup vegetable oil
1 medium-sized head of garlic
1 thin-skinned, damn juicy lemon, juiced
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley
A few hefty grinds of fresh black pepper and a few stout pinches of Kosher salt

You’ll need ka-bob skewers, and in a perfect world, a nice, hot bed of coals to grill the Spiedini over; if you can’t grill, you can also cook the skewers indoors on a hot griddle. Spiedini is an Italian term with the loose translation of ‘skewers of meat or fish, grilled over a flame’; the direct translation is ‘skewers of meat that are slowly prepared, to the sound of blaring heavy-metal/ bad rap music, by highly paid kitchen staff.’

Pound the chicken breasts thin, about a quarter inch thick, and cut length-wise into 1” wide strips. If you’ve pounded your breasts thin enough, you should get 14 – 16 strips from the 2# of chicken.

You’ll also need three prep bowls, one which will contain the ½ cup of olive oil, one the flour, and the third a well-mixed blend of the bread crumbs, the grated parm cheese and the basil flakes.

Lightly salt and pepper the chicken strips, thoroughly wash your hands (this is an important step that was often overlooked by our kitchen staff, no matter how much I yelled at them when I found them preparing this dish, and others, with dirty, filthy hands), and grab a chicken strip. Dredge it in the flour, shake off the excess, dip it in the olive oil, drip off the excess, and dredge it in the bread crumb mixture. Place the coated strip on your work surface and roll it into a pinwheel. Stick this onto a skewer, obviously jamming the business end of the skewer through the entire diameter of the pinwheel, and repeat the process with all of the strips. Dependent upon your dredging, dripping and shaking skills, you may end up needing more flour, oil or bread crumb mix; but you’d have hopefully figured that out on your own, as any cook knows that a recipe is but a yardstick, not a micrometer.

Let your skewered, Spiedini-ed chicken sit patiently on your cooking sheet, and begin preparing the Amogio sauce. Peel your garlic cloves, and chop to a fine dice. Don’t use a garlic press; there is a profound difference in how garlic tastes and reacts to other ingredients when it is chopped versus pressed. Throw your finely diced garlic in a mixing bowl along with all of the other ingredients, and stir it gently with a spoon every so often. Don’t whisk it, as you don’t want to emulsify the lemon juice into the blend. Be gentle.

You can make the Amogio sauce the day before, but needless to say, the longer it sits, the more potent it gets. If you do make it the day before, I’d leave out the freshly squeezed lemon juice; add that closer to meal time. Stir gently after adding the lemon juice.

Grill or griddle your chicken to doneness – and you have to be careful about this, as the rolled up chicken will need to cook through; but be careful not to burn the crap out of the outer portion of the chicken in the process. Grilling is a skill, not to be maligned, chided and laughed at by those who don’t practice, but only eat the fruits of the hot iron grate. The first time we had the dish at the newly opened restaurant of the ‘inventor’ chef, the inner part of our Spiedini was RAW; not undercooked, but blind-ass, naked RAW! The waiter was flustered, and actually said, “Uh, keep this quiet, and the Tiramisu is on the house!” Mmmmm, raw chicken and Tiramisu, one of my favorite Italian delights! What wine goes with that?

To plate, liberally spoon 1/3 cup of the Amogio on a plate, un-skewer the properly grilled chicken onto the pool of sauce, top the chicken and rim the plate with a little finely chopped parsley, spoon another tablespoon or two of the remaining Amogio over the top of the chicken and accompany with sides. I’d suggest a nice penne pasta with a light, slightly sweet marinara sauce as an accompaniment, as you’ll want something all-but bland to offset the punch-in-the-nose you’ll get from the Amogio sauce. Nicely prepared fresh green beans or broccoli will seal the meal.

Listen to some Sinatra and quaff some Chianti, or Amarone, if the finances will allow.