Fang Food: Chicken Spiedies

The spiedie /ˈspiːdi/ is a sub local to Greater Binghamton in the Southern Tier of New York State, and somewhat more broadly known and enjoyed throughout Central New York state. A spiedie consists of cubes of chicken, pork, lamb, veal, venison or beef. The meat cubes are marinated overnight or longer (sometimes for as long as two weeks under a controlled environment) in a special marinade, then grilled on spits (if steel skewers are used, they are called "spiedie rods") over a charcoal pit.

~Wikipedia

Now, I've never been to Greater Binghampton myself. I first found out about these amazing sandwiches when an issue of Cook's Country (a fine magazine put out by the good folks over at America's Test Kitchen) came in the mail with the recipe I'm about to share inside. Now, unlike in the definition above, this recipe doesn't have you marinate the chicken overnight, or even two weeks, for that matter. With this one, you only have to marinate the chicken for about thirty minutes.

This is probably my favorite recipe that I've posted so far. Besides the fact that it's tasty, it's also got a lot of memories for me. Every 4th of July that I'm at Mom's house, I make these for dinner before we go to the fireworks show. Lots of fun times there...

Chicken Spiedies

Courtesy of America's Test Kitchen

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup Olive Oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh basil leaves
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
• 2 teaspoons grated zest plus 1 tablespoon juice from 1 lemon
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 3 tablespoons mayo
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 1 1/2 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breats
• 6 six inch sub rolls, slit lengthwise

Directions:

1. If you're going to use wooden skewers to cook the spiedies, you need to let them soak for 30 minutes before putting them on the grill. This prevents them from bursting into flames.
2. In a large bowl, combine the oil, garlic, basil, oregano, lemon zest, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes. Take two tablespoons of the oil mixture, and transfer it to a smaller bowl. Pour the non-reserved mixture into a Ziploc bag. Add the mayo, vinegar, and lemon juice into the small bowl. Refrigerate both mixtures.
3. Cut the chicken into rough, one inch cubes, and put the cubes into the bag. Put the chicken and marinade back into the fridge, and let sit for thirty minutes. After that time is finished, get the chicken back out, and stick them onto your skewers.
4. Place the skewers onto a hot, very clean grill. Cook for 10 - 15 minutes, turning frequently, until the outside is slightly blackened consistently all over. You may want to just cut into one of the larger ones, just to make sure they're cooked all the way through. No one wants raw-in-the-middle chicken.
5. After they're all cooked, serve them inside the sub rolls, drizzled with the sauce you made in step one. Enjoy!

And there you have it! A great recipe for a fairly quick BBQ dinner, that just happens to be a personal favorite of mine.

Fang Food is a series of weekly baseball food articles written by prwhitaker1 (Whit), imstillhungry95 (Blake) and Turambar (Patrick). Check out the archive of past articles! Questions, comments, suggestions, concerns? Email us at fangfood@gmail.com or contact us on Facebook.