Chicken Piccata Recipe
Chicken Piccata Recipe – chicken piccata as we mean it is typically a pan-fried chicken cutlet, topped with a lemon-butter piccata sauce.
Chicken piccata as we know it doesn’t actually seem to have origins in Italy.
It’s likely an Italian-American invention, a derivative of a couple of different classic Italian cooking techniques, like scaloppine which means “thin slices of meat (such as veal) sautéed or coated with flour and fried”.
A lemon and butter pan sauce is a classic way of dressing pan-fried meat, and is common throughout Italy, but the (brilliant) addition of capers can’t be attributed to any one place or time.
Chicken Piccata Recipe – However and whenever it came into being, chicken piccata is a very welcome addition to any home cook’s repertoire.
Chicken Piccata Pan Fry
Slice the chicken breasts horizontally.
The reason you cut the chicken breast into thin pieces is so that they can cook evenly during the pan-frying process.
Thin pieces of chicken mean that when the outside is crispy and perfectly brown, the chicken will be cooked through.
Season the chicken breast pieces, and then give them a nice coating of flour.
Fry the chicken cutlets in a combination of olive oil and butter.
The oil helps prevent the butter from burning, plus, we love the flavor of both.
Chicken Piccata Pan Fry
The piccata sauce is simply a pan sauce, which means that use the good crispy, chicken-tinged buttery bits that are left in the skillet after frying the chicken cutlets to make a sauce.
Here’s how to make this lemony piccata sauce:
Sauté shallots and garlic in the pan drippings—i.e. the leftover oil and butter.
Add stock.
Simmer for a few minutes to reduce it.
Stir in more butter, plus the requisite capers and lemon juice.
Season with a little salt and pepper.
Chicken Piccata Recipe Ingredients
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken cutlets or breasts, butterflied to create thinner pieces
½ teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
1¾ teaspoons sea salt
1 cup flour
10 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 tablespoon minced garlic (from 4-6 cloves)
1½ cups chicken stock
1 teaspoons lemon zest (from 1 lemon), plus more to taste
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons capers, drained
Fresh parsley, chopped, optional
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