When our daughter Sophia was in elementary school, she spent a month or so each summer with her grandmother Raisa and extended Zelinsky-Oliver-Bulawka clan in Maryland. At the end of her stay, my husband Weldon and I drove out to bring her home to Chicago. But before we headed west, we always drove a 100 miles further east to relax and bathe for a week in the salt water of the Atlantic Ocean at Rehoboth Beach, DE.
The trip to Rehoboth had to be well-planned and timed since traveling from Columbia, MD to Rehoboth required crossing the Chesapeake Bay on one of two bridges. Since most shore -side rentals at the various Delmarva (Delaware, Maryland and Virginia) beach resorts from Memorial Day to Labor Day ran from Saturday to Saturday, thousands of like-minded families were heading the same way early Saturday morning, creating an enormous traffic jam at the Bay Bridges near Annapolis, MD. Sometimes the bridge authority alternated opening both spans one way and then the other, which expedited the crossing. But if only one span was open east, a delay of some length was expected. So our goal was to leave no later to 8:00 am in the hopes of beating other cars headed the same way, minimizing our wait at the Bay’s edge.
But there was another more delicious reason for leaving at 8:00 am. Assuming we would have an hour’s wait at the crossing, we still had to travel 90+ miles on a country road, about 2 hours, to reach Greenwood, DE, our first stop on the way to Rehoboth.
Greenwood is a plain rural town of 982 people, surrounded by large chicken farms. No one famous was born there. Greenwood’s only claim to fame is its very active volunteer fire department which raises money for its charitable activities by selling thousands of barbecued chicken dinners each summer weekend. But the daily supply is limited so we wanted to get our share before proceeding to Rehoboth.
As soon as you drive into town from the west, you can smell our destination. The car seems to follow the smoky scent until we reach the intersection of DE 16 and US 13 where the scene is the same each summer weekend. There, the large green fire truck is parked alongside the firehouse and several dozen picnic tables are set around a large aluminum shed with opened garage doors. Inside, firemen are barbecuing thousands of broiler/fryer chickens, split in half and placed between large wire grids, basting the chicken with an herby, vinegary sauce, not with the usual tomatoey sweet barbecue sauce.
Even though 11:00 am may seem too early for a big lunch, we were nonetheless ready to eat, our appetites whetted by hours of anticipation and now salivating like Pavlovian dogs from the delicious aroma. We are glad to have reached this well-loved spot before the chicken ran out.
The lunch was the same every year: a platter each consisting of half a BBQ chicken, potato chips, (your choice of regular, BBQ, cheddar cheese, sour cream & onion), sour pickles, a dinner roll and a cold drink. As we sank our teeth into the meltingly tender chicken pieces, savoring every flavorful morsel of its herb-infused crispy skin and juicy meat, we reached nirvana. It is a large meal, but we somehow managed to scarf down the chicken, chips and pickles, ignoring the dinner roll. Once sated, we piled into the car and headed to Rehoboth.
Each year I asked the firemen for the sauce recipe and the reply was always the same – “it’s a secret.” After a dozen such replies, I later embarked on a search for recipes claiming to have duplicated “firemen’s chicken,” and tested each to decide which came closest to the Greenwood firemen’s chicken we loved.
In the process, I learned a bit of culinary history. I always assumed that this chicken preparation was a Delmarva Peninsula phenomenon as there are chicken stands along the road to other Eastern Shore resorts selling similar, but not the same, barbecued chicken. But I learned the original recipe has academic origins, developed in the 1950s at Penn State by Robert Baker, later a professor of food science at Cornell University where the recipe acquired its name: Cornell Barbecue Sauce. Baker was a specialist in poultry who also created more than 40 poultry, turkey and cold cut inventions including chicken nuggets, turkey ham and poultry hot dogs. The recipe was developed for a large quantity (10+pounds) of smaller fryer size birds (2-3 lbs) and became popular at picnics in the Ithaca area. Eventually, this recipe spread to other fund-raisers, fire department cookouts and little league barbecues in New York State and worked its way down the coast from one group of volunteer firemen or Lions or Kiwanis to another. The side dishes often differed from group to group, but always included a form of potato, pickles or salad and bread.
There are two schools of thought regarding the preparation of this recipe. First, is whether to marinate and, if so, for how long? Some cooks prefer putting the raw chicken in a re-sealable bag adding half of the sauce and refrigerating overnight, using the remainder of the sauce to baste while grilling. Others say marinating for a few hours is sufficient. I have tried both marination methods and prefer the overnight method which results in a tastier chicken. Second, how hot should the coals be? Some say that grilling on hot heat produces a crispy result, while others say that medium heat is preferable. I found that slow grilling in two zones, direct hot heat and indirect medium heat, with constant turning and basting produces a more flavorful chicken.
Since the Cornell Barbecue Sauce is used both as a brine and basting liquid, it contains a large amount of salt. The resulting barbecued chicken, however, is pleasantly salty. This amount of sauce is sufficient for 10 pounds of chicken. The recipe can be halved.
Cornell Barbecue Sauce.
1 egg*
1 cup (236 ml) vegetable oil
2 cups (473 ml) cider vinegar
3 Tbs. salt*
1 Tbs. poultry seasoning
1 tsp. ground black pepper
Yield: about 3 cups (710 ml), enough for 10 pounds (4.5 K) chicken
Crack the egg into a blender or food processor bowl and process until well beaten. With the blender or food processor motor running, add oil slowly and blend for about 2 minutes until frothy and homogenous. Essentially you are making a mayonnaise. Then add the vinegar, salt, poultry seasoning and ground black pepper and blend until well incorporated. Pour sauce into a glass jar, cover and refrigerate until ready to use.
* The raw egg can be replaced with a pasteurized egg. The salt content will keep the refrigerated mixture fresh for up to one week.
Although the Greenwood firemen grill small, 2 ½ -3½ pound, broiler/fryers that are available from the chicken farms on the Delmarva Peninsula, I can’t find such small chickens in Chicago grocery stores. Thus, I buy 4-5 pound roasters which are bigger breasted and produce two portions of breast meat. This recipe works best on bone-in chicken rather than boneless.
Firemen’s Chicken
2 chickens, 4-5 pounds each or 4 chickens 2 ½ -3½ pounds each, cut in half or quarters*
3 cups Cornell Barbecue Sauce
In a large resealable plastic bag, place the chicken pieces of your choice. Pour half of the sauce over the chicken, reserving the remainder for basting. Close bag, massage sauce into chicken and let marinate in the refrigerator up to 24 hours.
When ready to cook, remove chicken from refrigerator one hour before grilling. While the chicken reaches room temperature, clean the grill rack and light the charcoal. When charcoal is ready, create two cooking zones: placing ⅔ of the charcoal on one side of the grill and the remaining ⅓ on the other side. Place the rack on the grill and brush with a thin layer of high smoke point oil like sunflower, safflower or canola oil to create as non-stick grill surface.
Start cooking chicken skin side up, turning every 10 minutes, basting frequently with reserved sauce. Watch carefully so the chicken does not burn. If the chicken is cooking too fast, move the pieces to the cooler side of the grill, returning to the hotter side to further cooking and basting after a few minutes.
Continue grilling for another 40 minutes, turning and basting the chicken every 10 minutes. After 50 minutes of grilling, check the internal temperature of the meat with an instant-read meat thermometer inserted in the thickest part of the thigh or breast. Chicken is cooked when internal temperature reaches 165 ° F (74 °C).
Cooking time depends on the temperature of the grill. You may need to add more coals if the grill cools down.
Potato chips were always included in the Greenwood firemen chicken order. At home I make oven baked potato chips which maintain the spirit of the firemen’s chicken, but with superior taste.
Baked Potato Chips, adapted from Martha Stewart
Vegetable-oil cooking spray
2 pounds (453 g) russet potatoes, peeled, cut into ⅛-inch-thick slices*
|3 tablespoons olive oil
Coarse salt
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Freshly ground pepper
Preheat oven to 400 °F (200°C). Lightly coat 2 rimmed baking sheets with cooking spray; set aside.
Soak the sliced potatoes in cold water for 10 minutes to remove some of the starch. Remove and thoroughly dry the potato slice on dishtowels. Place potatoes, oil, 1 tablespoon salt, and the cayenne in a large bowl; season with pepper. Toss to combine.
Arrange potato slices on prepared baking sheets, spacing them ¼ inch apart. After 10 minutes, turn the potato slices over with tongs, rotate the baking pans and continue baking until potatoes are crisp and golden brown, about 20-25 minutes. Spread out potatoes on parchment paper; let dry 5 minutes. If some of the chips are still soft in places, place tray in warm turned-off oven to further dry out. Sprinkle with additional salt while warm, if desired.
Serves 4
*In the original recipe the potatoes were to be sliced in ¼ inch slices in the original recipe. The resulting chips, however, were too thick and, while turning brown, did not crisp.
In keeping with the Delmarva tradition, I like serving Firemen’s Chicken with these potato chips, but add corn and coleslaw as sides.
Photo credits: Food — Slava Johnson