And Now for Some Culinary Weirdness: Christopher Walken Shows You How to Cook Chicken & Pears

I don’t need to be made to look evil. I can do that on my own. 

- Christo­pher Walken

Five years ago, actor Christo­pher Walken casu­al­ly shared a sim­ple recipe for roast chick­en with pears, above. The light­ing was ama­teur, his imple­ments fair­ly util­i­tar­i­an, and, much to my grat­i­fi­ca­tion, he could­n’t keep his cat off the counter, either.

His impro­vised pat­ter was as non­cha­lant as his han­dling of his ingre­di­ents. Unde­terred, legions of fans still found plen­ty of Walken-esque quotes with which to spice up the video’s com­ments sec­tion.

Chalk it up to the dozens of soft spo­ken, seri­ous­ly unhinged char­ac­ters on which this actor’s rep­u­ta­tion rests. It’s painful­ly easy to imag­ine a rival gang mem­ber or law enforce­ment offi­cial lashed to a chair just off cam­era, squirm­ing in ter­ror as Walken paus­es to appre­ci­ate the “lit­tle cook­ies” the caramelized pears leave behind on the bot­tom of his pan.

What­ev­er he’s plan­ning to do to this imag­i­nary unfor­tu­nate, one hopes it won’t involve flaps of skin and a ver­ti­cal poul­try roast­er.

As to the recipe, it’s as deli­cious as it is innocu­ous. Try it!

If you’re feel­ing less than adven­tur­ous, you can decrease the creep fac­tor by repli­cat­ing the shoot with a grand­fa­ther­ly gent of your choos­ing pri­or to serv­ing. (Any­one who’s not Christo­pher Walken will do.)

If you’re look­ing for fur­ther serv­ing sug­ges­tions, the com­e­dy chan­nel Fun­ny or Die revis­it­ed the dish in 2012, pair­ing it with sal­ad, seafood melange, red wine, Law & Order: Spe­cial Vic­tims Unit star Richard Belz­er, and two heav­i­ly made up assis­tants who appear to be on loan from Robert Palmer’s “Addict­ed to Love” video.

Things get cook­ing with a vis­it to the Byzan­tine Stew Leonard’s super­mar­ket, and end with a cell phone pic of Walken’s nose. There’s a live man­dolin ser­e­nade and the kitchen seems vast­ly more expen­sive, but I found myself miss­ing the homey sense of fore­bod­ing cre­at­ed by the orig­i­nal.

Still, one can nev­er go wrong with poul­try and pears.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Christo­pher Walken Reads The Three Lit­tle Pigs, The Raven, and a Lit­tle Lady Gaga

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” Read by Christo­pher Walken, Vin­cent Price & Christo­pher Lee

How Cook­ing Can Change Your Life: A Short Ani­mat­ed Film Fea­tur­ing the Wis­dom of Michael Pol­lan

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday