Episode 042 Baked Chicken Spiedini

Intro: Welcome, welcome everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can always get on the table. That is our promise and guarantee to you. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: Today I’m super excited to share this recipe with you. We have a restaurant here in Kansas City where I’m located, called Garozzo’s, that serves really authentic down-home Italian food. The first time that I had Chicken Spiedini was at Garozzo’s and it blew my mind. It was super delicious. It’s basically marinated chicken pieces that are rolled in breadcrumbs and then skewered and baked, and they’re served with either a red sauce, a cream sauce, or a lemon garlic butter sauce. Delicious. I will tell you, it is a wonderful dinner to serve if you love Italian-style dinners, but maybe you want something that’s not pasta. This is an excellent, excellent option. 

So the word Spiedini is obviously an Italian word and the word Spiedini actually translates to skewer in English. So we are going to be skewing up some chicken here and serving it for dinner.

But first I will tell you this is not a quick dinner. This isn’t something you’re gonna choose to have at five o’clock and have it ready by six. You actually have to marinate the chicken. So you want to plan ahead for this dinner. This is a great one to maybe prep on Sunday and plan for Monday or to prep on Saturday and have a nice Sunday family dinner.

Tips and Tricks: A few tips before we get started on this recipe. We’re obviously using chicken in this recipe, and this is a tip that I share anytime I’m using chicken. I like to use something called air-chilled chicken. That’s not a brand, it’s actually a method of processing the chicken. Here in the Midwest, we have something called smart chicken, and that’s what I tend to use because I know that it’s air chilled. Basically, the process is that after the chicken is processed, there are two different ways that they can cool the chicken down for packaging. The traditional method is that it is held in or dunked in chlorinated cold baths. When they do that, not only are they probably taking on some chemicals, but they’re definitely absorbing more water. When you introduce water, you’re reducing flavor. So that is no bueno. The air-chilled method is actually where they hang the processed chicken and they run it through cooled rooms, so air chilled. By doing that, it cools down slower. It retains its flavor. It doesn’t take on extra moisture, and it helps preserve a nice texture when you cook your chicken. If you’ve ever had chicken that had a weird texture after it was cooked, you can avoid that by purchasing air-chilled chicken. I think it’s probably a more expensive and labor-intensive process because your air-chilled chicken is going to be more expensive. I’m telling you right now, it is worth it. If a brand uses air chilling, it will say it right on the front of the package. 

The other ingredient that I want to talk about is the breadcrumbs. So for this recipe, we’re using just a traditional Italian-style bread. There’s traditional breadcrumbs and then there’s panko breadcrumbs. Panko is a coarser, grittier, texture, larger chunk. You don’t want that. You want that fine traditional breadcrumb, and usually, you can find them in the grocery store as plain or as Italian. For this recipe, I do prefer an Italian-style seasoned breadcrumb. Now, if you don’t have that if you just have plain, what you can do is add a tablespoon of Italian seasoning to the breadcrumbs, and you have Italian breadcrumbs. So you can do it either way.

The next tip is about white wine. I’ve shared this in previous episodes. I don’t drink a ton of white wine in my house. I prefer red wine, so when a recipe calls for white wine, I generally don’t have it on hand. Until I figured this out. You can freeze white wine. If you’re just going to be using it in cooking, you can absolutely freeze it. It will stay good for about six months. So what I do is, I buy it in a carton. I’m not talking about a box. It’s more like a three-serving carton. I pour out what I need and then I flip the top up so it creates more room in the bottle. Put the lid on, put it in the freezer, and it will freeze up into like a slushy consistency. Like I said, it’ll be good for six months. 

All right, so those are all of my tips. Let’s get into making this chicken Spiedini for dinner. 

Chicken Spiedini Recipe: There are going to be three basic areas of making your Chicken Spiedini. So you’re gonna marinate, that’s gonna take 24, you can go all the way to 48 hours. The next step is going to be assembling the Chicken Spiedini and baking. The last step is gonna be making your Amogio sauce for serving, and then that’s it. 

So let’s start with the marinade. I like to just use a plastic bag when I marinate this chicken. So you’ll start with one and a half to two pounds of boneless skinless chicken breast, and you’re going to cut it into about one-and-a-half-inch pieces. Go ahead and pop that in your plastic baggie. Then you’re going to add two teaspoons of lemon zest, a quarter cup of extra virgin olive oil, a quarter cup of water, and a quarter cup of white. A three-quarters teaspoon of kosher salt, and then you’re going to add four garlic cloves that are just crushed, so you’re not going to be chopping the garlic. I like to just take the blunt side of a knife, press down on that on top of the garlic and crack the garlic open. That will release enough of their flavor and oil into the marinade to give that garlic flavor without being overwhelming. 

So close that baggie up and pop it in the fridge for about 24 hours. You can go all the way up to 48 hours if you want to or if you need to. 

Now, when it’s time to assemble and bake your skewers, you want to start by preheating your oven to 400 degrees, and then grab a large rimmed baking sheet and cover it with foil and give it a good spray with non-stick spray. Now you want to make sure you prep your skewers. If you’re using metal skewers, you’re good to go. If you’re using wooden skewers, I recommend soaking them in a little bit of water while you are breading the chicken. 

So go ahead and pull that chicken out of the fridge and you’re going to set up a little assembly line. So you’re gonna have the chicken in the marinade on one side. In the middle, you’re gonna place a plate with one cup of Italian seasoned breadcrumbs, and then a plate on the end that’s lined with a paper towel. 

To start, you’ll remove about three to four pieces of chicken from the marinade. Pop them on the breading, roll them all around in those breadcrumbs, and make sure they’re coated on all sides. Then place those on the paper towel-lined plate. Then you go ahead and repeat with all of the chicken until it’s complete. If you have any marinade left in that Ziploc baggy, you can go ahead and discard that. 

Now it’s time to skewer the chicken. I like putting about five pieces of chicken per skewer and pushing them close together so it kind of looks like one long piece. You should have about six to eight skewers when you’re done. Place all of those on the foil-lined baking sheet, and then you’ll take that non-stick spray and spray the tops of the chicken skewers. 

You’ll bake it at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Then after 15 minutes, flip the skewers and bake on the other side for about 10 more minutes. You want to make sure that your skewers are cooked through to 165-degree internal temperature.

Now while they are baking, you can absolutely make your Amogio sauce. You will just take a small saucepan and pop it over medium, medium-low heat. Add four tablespoons of butter and four tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. You definitely want the extra virgin olive oil here because it has that nutty, buttery, olivey flavor that you want in your sauce. You’ll also add a healthy pinch of kosher salt and red pepper flakes. If you really love garlic, you can absolutely add one minced garlic clove as well. 

Now, let that all melt together and as soon as it’s melted together, you will remove it from the heat and add one tablespoon of finely chopped Italian parsley and two and a half tablespoons of lemon juice. You can give it a taste for additional seasoning, and then what you’ll do is you’ll serve your chicken Spiedini skewers, one to two skewers per person, and a little bit of the Amogio sauce either drizzled over the top of the skewers, or you can serve it on the side and people can dip it in as they wish. 

Now I will say that I have also served these Chicken Spiedini skewers with a basil pesto drizzled over top, or even just a marinara sauce. Any of those will work. 

That does it for the full recipe for your chicken Spiedini with Amogio sauce. Really, you can tell that once the chicken is marinated, the recipe is quite easy. So you could absolutely make it during the week. You just have to plan ahead by a day or two. 

Now when I serve this Chicken Spiedini for dinner, we love to have a little bit of pasta on the side. Maybe a green vegetable or a green salad, and some garlic bread. It makes an excellent Italian dinner. 

As always, I will link all of the recipes that I talked about in this episode right in the show notes. If you’re enjoying these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love to have you subscribe or follow and rate and review the show in your preferred podcast player.

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner, makes sure dinner time a little easier.