Mom’s Barbecue Chicken is really Cornell Chicken!

Growing up, we all loved my Mom’s Barbecue chicken.  It seems to be a bit of an odd recipe – a lot of vinegar, and little oil, a raw egg.   The chicken would become very tender after a long soak in the marinade, then would turn golden when grilled and basted with the sauce several times.

The best thing about it was the fact that is was almost like the barbecue seasonings used by Brooks House of Barbecue, a local restaurant..  Brooks Barbecue is a small restaurant in upstate Oneonta, NY.  We ALWAYS went to it for special occasions.  In fact I went there on my prom date.  I truly didn’t realize until I was a senior in high school that there were actually other restaurants in Oneonta.

At any rate, Brooks is famous for their chicken, and they go out and do barbecues as fund raisers all over New York State.   Many small towns all over upstate NY, form the Fingers Lakes to the Adirondacks, have community fund raiser chicken barbecues.  YOu can find one every weekend someplace during the summer.

Imagine my surprise when I saw a recipe in a magazine a year or so ago called “Cornell Chicken Barbecue Sauce”….and it was remarkably like my mom’s! Did someone steal her recipe?   Slightly different proportions of ingredients, but otherwise pretty much the same.  So I did some research, of course, since Google can tell you anything.  I imagine my mom saw the recipe someplace, or someone gave it to her many years ago.  It never occurred to me that she might not have invented it.

Turns out Cornell Chicken is attributed to Bob Baker, a professor  in the food science department of Cornell University.   He loved chicken, and specialized in making chicken into sometimes wonderful, &  sometimes strange, chicken recipes, including chicken nuggets and chicken hot dogs.  He specifically developed to make use of smaller chickens, rather than waiting so long for them to mature.  Thus the “broiler” size chicken was recognized and put to use.

He and his family opened a restaurant in Ithaca, much the same as I imagine Brooks House of BBQ did.  Who knows, maybe they found the Cornell Sauce recipe and started using it too.

My mom’s chicken, ahem, Brooks chicken or Cornell chicken, uses half chickens, not too big, ideally cooked outside on the grill over charcoal.  However, since I have a foot of fresh snow on the deck, the oven works almost as well for me.   My mom always let them sit in the sauce to marinate overnight.  I once left them 2 days.  The acids help break down the meat, and it remains juicy and flavorful, with a slight vinegary hit.  Some recipes I looked at only said marinate 2 hours – which will make the chicken good, but nothing as good as the overnight soak.  So here it is, my Mom’s Chicken Barbecue recipe, courtesy of an upstate professor from Cornell.

Mom’s Cornell chicken barbecue sauce

 

oven baked Cornell chicken

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Print

Mom's (Cornell) Chicken Barbecue Sauce

A vinegar based chicken marinade that both marinates and bastes a half chicken.  Ideally done over charcoal on a grill, baking in the oven will work as a substitute - and the whole house will smell wonderful!
Course Main Course
Cuisine American

Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup oil vegetable or olive oil
  • 2 cups vinegar - apple cider
  • 2 tbsp salt
  • 1 tbsp poultry seasoning
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • 1 egg
  • 1-2-3 small whole chickens cut in half, backbone removed

Instructions

  1. Whisk everything together, or use a blender, immersion blender or food processor.

  2. Pour into a large sauce pan, and set over medium low heat.  Stir occasionally.  DO NOT BOIL, or the egg will scramble.  Just warm it through.

  3. Place all the halved chickens into a large pans, like a roasting pan, or large bowl.  Pour the sauce right over all the chicken.  Refrigerate several hours or overnight.

  4. Cook chicken over charcoal or in the oven (350F) until almost falling off the bone., 1- 1.5 hours  Use the left over marinade to baste the chicken several times.  Slow, low temperature and longer timing makes it better.

Recipe Notes

I use the convection feature of my oven to promote even browning.

If you choose to barbecue, which is what residents in upstate NY call it, referred to as grilling in other parts of the country, make sure your grill can be moved up and down.  Start higher up, away from the coals and move the rack down as the chicken cooks.

Fresh coleslaw & baked beans is the perfect accompaniment, along with a fresh white roll. Which is what you'll get at any NY barbecue.

And when we’re done eating, I take the bones, roast them all a bit more with the reserved backbones I saved when I halved the  chickens, and then I make homemade stock.   This gives me even more for the money from those whole chickens I bought.

You can easily double or triple the recipes for large batches.