My Name Is Chicken McLicken

"Popcorn popcorn for the ducks.
Duck duck duck will bring me luck.
All the ducks come say hello,
Cuz we bring popcorn, not Jell-O."

Obviously, that wasn't written by Bernie Taupin or Ira Gershwin.  I made it up while walking with my first child, Gina, to feed some ducks floating on a pond across from Knott's Berry Farm.  Little Gina looked up at me and said, "Because they don't like Jell-O, right Daddy?"  And that became part of our tradition.

We didn't always have popcorn, often bringing leftover bread or tearing some from our picnic sandwiches, and we often went to other ponds in other parks, but we always repeated that silly singsong on our way there, which led to a family tradition of similar chants that made us smile. 

Daddy (Wes) and Gina

The free-admission, parklike grounds near Knott's replica of Independence Hall have since been supplanted by Knott's Soak City, a fun water park that suited our family when we visited it, but I hold fond memories for that park that is no more.  It seems in California that maximizing highest and best use on valuable real estate will push us onward and upward, whether we like it or not.  My earliest memories of Knott's Berry Farm itself are of a place where we would pan for gold and drive the old go-carts designed to look like Model-Ts, where Dad would buy some shirts at Bob's Men's Shop, and he and Mom would buy some beautiful ash trays and swirled glass objets d' arte at Virginia's Gift Shop.  We went to Mrs. Knott's Chicken Dinner Restaurant only once, because it wasn't as good as Mom's. 

Years later, Julie and I found common ground in the fact that her parents also took her on similar trips to Bob's and Virginia's.  While we didn't meet as children, we probably saw each other a few times, because we definitely seemed to share common childhoods.

By the time my children were born, Knott's  had already evolved to a full-fledged amusement park from little more than a small carnival with shops built in the area of what originally was nothing more than a berry stand like many others that popped up on Orange County's rural street corners.  I remember when my cousin Donald brought his family out to California for a visit, he said they found Knott's preferable to Disneyland.  I guess it was natural that they would eventually turn a free park with ducks into a profit center.

Alvin and tartan-clad sister Darlene, a few years ago.

Wow, is that ever off the subject?  Okay, at least I did mention that Mom's fried chicken dinner was better than the world famous recipe of Mrs. Knott's, and last night, with memories of Mom's chicken on my mind, I planned to make fried chicken for dinner.  Once again, however, I realized I didn't have her recipe.  Eating food fried in Crisco had grown out of fashion, and so even though it was my favorite as a child, I don't remember her making fried chicken too often after I grew up.

I mentioned to Julie that I might attempt to make fried chicken using some boneless, skinless chicken breasts I just bought, which would right there be different from my mother's recipe, which would fry the pieces with bones and skin.  Julie said that her grandmother Opal McQuillen, a 4'11" firecracker who she called Gramma Popo, used pancake batter instead of flour as her secret fried chicken ingredient.

In addition to the fact that I don't know Mom's recipe or how substituting olive oil for Crisco would work out, two other lightning bolts flashed into my head.  First, I have some pancake mix in the refrigerator that Amy bought a while back.  Second, this would be the perfect chance to create a recipe called El Pollo Popo.  I decided that Chicken McLicken was a bit more appropo than Popo, especially if the end result or a typo made people change the order of the last two letters.  Besides, that would allow me to bring up the subject of singsongs.



Jay, pre-Universal Music Group

My sister Darlene gave Gina a cute Scottish outfit, complete with a tartan scarf and matching tam.  As you can see in the photo above, she was adorable in that outfit (and all the time, for that matter).  She especially liked her boots, with a penchant for shoes that her daughter Emma shares with her mom, Amy, Julie, Julie's mother, my mother and Darlene.  Come to think of it, I don't know any woman who doesn't like shoes.

The outfit led to a new singsong, of course. 



Amy in singsong mode

"My name is Chicken McLicken,
And I'm a hardy lass..."

You can probably imagine the types of boisterous boasting of prowess that followed, although any kicking was never of something that rhymed with lass.

I used to use that same singsong with Amy before she was a year old, swinging her arms back and forth in a manner similar to the photo of her as a toddler in the engineer outfit my sister bought initially for Jay that was passed on to her.

Jay, of course, was a hardy lad instead, but when he was an infant, I more often spoke with a gruff voice in a poor immitation of Miami Vice's Don Johnson and said, "I'm Crockett, and this is my partner Tubbs." 

With all these images rushing through my head, I pulled out a pot in which to fry chicken.  My mom used to use a deep, cast iron skillet, one that I inadvertantly ruined as a teenager trying to clean it, which was in retrospect one of the worst good deeds of my life, but I wanted the higher edges of a pot to limit splatter onto the stove. 

Weighing the situation further, I decided to follow Q-CC protocol, creating minimum mess, by backing it in a glass dish lined with parchment paper.

As you'll see, this recipe is similar to Q-CC Chicken Parmesan, although obviously without the marinara sauce and cheese, and as such it is even easier.

You'll need two or three boneless, skinless chicken breasts, about cup and a half of pancake mix, a cup of milk, seasoned salt, pepper and I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Spray. 

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees.

Pour some pancake mix at one end of the parchment paper-lined dish.

Put about a cup of milk in a shallow, wide bowl.

After trimming off any undesireable parts of the chicken (fat and veins) that escaped the butcher, split the thicker part of the breast and butterfly it to increase the surface area that will be breaded.

Soak the breasts one at a time in the milk, and then put them in the pancake mix, flipping them over to coat both sides, and then place them in the other part of the dish.  If you measured about right, the final piece of chicken will fill the dish and use up the rest of the pancake mix perfectly so that you place that last piece where the mix was piled for coating.  Most likely, that won't happen, but it shouldn't be too far off, and the extra just ends up staying in the parchment paper when you serve the chicken. 

Sprinkle liberally with pepper and seasoned salt, and then bake for 45 minutes.

Wash the knife and milk bowl in anticbacterial soap before putting in the dishwasher.

Julie came home just about the time I was taking the chicken out of the oven.  It looked sort of like a mountain range, with brown peaks and powdery crevices.  I told Julie I was making Popo's chicken, and she asked if I had made pancake batter and dipped the chicken in it.  A lightbulb came on.  That would make sense.

However, the recipe I had used actually looked great, except the powdery parts, which had actually been caused by me sprinkling some of the "extra" pancake mix over the top of the already dipped and breaded chicken.  Our brainstorming led to the idea of spraying it with I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, which Julie normally uses on her microwaved Orville Redenbacher Smart Pop.

Cooking the chicken for 15 minutes more resulted in delicious chicken that was crispy and tasty on the top and tender throughout.  If you like juicier chicken, cook it for less time, but be sure to thoroughly cook the chicken.

Cleanup?  What cleanup?  Wad up the parchment paper to toss it out, and quickly rinse the baking dish after it cools down.

For a side dish, we had steamed asparagus, which is an easy recipe.  Rinse a handful of fresh asparagus, trim the bases from the stalks, put in a glass bread dish with a tablespoon of water and two pats of Smart Balance or butter, cover with wax paper and microwave for two minutes.  This dish cleans very easily without using any kind of pan liner.