G is for Gingerbread Chicken. Really.

Yep, that says Gingerbread Chicken. Let’s all just be thankful it’s not Chicken Gingerbread.

This is an adaptation of an adaptation of a 14th century recipe mixed with a 15th century recipe. To find out what possessed me to do this, check out this post.

Here's how it looked on my plate. (Ignore the sad veg mix in the background.)

RECIPE FIRST, ESSAY SECOND

Gingerbread Chicken aka Lombardy Chicken

1/4 cup fresh parsley 

3 TBsp red wine vinegar

1/2 lb boneless skinless chicken thighs

1 cup chicken broth

1 tsp red sandalwood

1/4 tsp ground white pepper

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 gingerbread recipe, crumbled ~ 1/4 cup https://alphatestkitchen.blogspot.com/2024/02/g-is-for-gingerbread-very-very-old.html

1/2 cup soft breadcrumbs

1 egg, beaten

1 TBsp butter

1) Mince parsley. Place it and vinegar in a small microwave safe container. Heat on high 1 minute. Set aside to cool.

2) Place broth and sandalwood, pepper, cinnamon, salt, gingerbread and breadcrumbs into a saucepan. Bring to boil.

3) Cube chicken while waiting for broth to boil.

4) Stir chicken into broth. Reduce heat to low, achieving a slow boil. Cook 10 minutes or until chicken is cooked. Remove from heat.

5) Add beaten egg to parsley mixture. Strain this into chicken and broth, pressing to get as much liquid out of the parsley as possible. Stir well.

6) Return saucepan to very low heat. Add butter. Cook 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until mixture thickens.

Previously on What to Do With This Leftover 14th/15th Century Gingerbread?, I was debating whether to make the chicken recipe that had the gingerbread as an ingredient. I don’t generally think of sweet and meat as a happy combination. HOWEVER, I cajoled myself into it by pointing out that my go-to order at a Chinese restaurant is Sweet and Sour Chicken. Was this really all that different conceptually? No! 

The vinegar and parsley mixture.

Chicken and broth before adding the thickening stuff.

Chicken and broth after The Thickening. Not gonna lie, I kinda love that it's pink.

I was curious about why this was called “Lombardy Chicken.” Sadly, after conferring with Research Assistant Google, I remain in the dark. (Which I guess is appropriate given the time period (ha ha…sorry, i’ll show myself out).) Apparently, Olive Garden had a popular seasonal dish with the same name, and that is mostly what internet searches turn up these days. The Olive Garden version seems to be a sort of cheesy chicken marsala. I honestly am surprised I don’t remember this dish; I used to eat at Olive Garden quite a bit back in the day, and this absolutely sounds like my cup of tea. HOWEVER, it is definitely not that same thing I was making here. 

I found only one modern blog reference to a similar sounding Lombardy Chicken recipe, and it did not give any explanation for the name. I have a guess, and no support for it: the Lombardy flag back in the day had a red cross. Red cross, red dish? Maybe!

(Apropos of nothing, looks like I made this on Super Bowl Sunday Feb 11, 2024. Sooooo, Lombardi trophy/Lombardy chicken? Yeaaah, that’s a stretch.)

Where did this recipe come from? Welp, I have a cookbook called Ye Bors Hede Boke of Cookry (which is super fun if you’ve ever been interested in cooking medieval English recipes). They created their Lombardy Chicken recipe by combining two recipes; one from a 14th century book called Ancient Cookery, and the other from a 15th century recipe from “For the knights’ and kings’ tables” (BL MS Sloane 442). So that was my starting point.

This recipe being “for the knights’ and kins’ tables,” probably indicates that someone like me wouldn’t have been making this for my own dinner table back in the day. Also, while I was poking around on the internet before writing this, I found that someone in Norway had done their Masters’ thesis about “For the knights’ and kings’ tables” (BL MS Sloane 442), which engendered massive food history nerd excitement! I have not managed to dig into it yet, but I did download it and am looking forward to diving in at some point. Perhaps someday I will randomly email the person that wrote it with a question or twelve. That’d probably bemuse the heck out of them.

Pedantic Aside: the original recipe title is “Bruet of Lombardye,” which translates to “Broth of Lombardy,” not “Lombardy Chicken.” One of the OG recipes is much more flex on the meat choice, suggesting hens, chickens, rabbits "...or other good flesh..." I actually kind of appreciate this approach.

So what did I change? First off, I halved the recipe I was following, both because I was feeling a little unsure about it, and because I had already used half of my gingerbread recipe as a dessert. I also went with chicken thighs instead of breasts because I find them more forgiving of cooking errors. (Thank you Food Network.) The white pepper is another of my twists on the original. That’s a personal preference thing.

And obviously, the original recipe didn’t involve a microwave, so cooking the parsley and vinegar that way was my being lazy, or efficient, depending on what kind of mood you’re in ;) 

Overall I would say the dish turned out great. It was delicious and waaay less weird to my palate than I had feared. Will I ever make it again? Ehn, probably not without A Reason. It’s a bit too complicated, ingredient-wise, to become part of my weeknight dinner rotation. But I’m definitely glad I goaded myself into making it at least once, especially since this whole cooking ancient gingerbread idea has been living in my brain for so long. And it did not ruin dinner in the slightest. Not a ringing endorsement, perhaps, but hopefully good enough to inspire me to continue trying this stuff out whenever the mood strikes.