Monday, May 26, 2008

Chicken Piccata


A few years ago, several of my nieces decided that I should teach them how to cook. I think the idea surfaced just after we had finished eating a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner. Anyway, each week, we'd pick a night and a food item. We made everything from potato salad, to cherry cheese pie, to Mom's Iced Tea. I even gave them note pads to copy recipes. My niece, Terri, being the good little student that she is, took notes as if she were attending Harvard Law School. "Uh, Ter, we're just making potato salad." Needless to say, she was my star pupil.
Eventually, schedules became tighter and our cooking classes got pushed to the back burner. Maybe one of these days we'll get back to our weekly fun.
Here's one of the recipes that we cooked at our class. It was a big hit and we all loved it. Honestly, I kind of forgot all about it. Luckily, my star pupil had it all written down! Thanx Ter!

1 pkg boneless chicken breasts
salt and pepper
flour
olive oil
butter
juice from one lemon
1 cup white wine


Cut each piece of chicken horizontally so that you have twice as many pieces that are half as thick. Place each piece in a ziploc bag and, using a mallet or rolling pin, pound each piece of chicken until very thin. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Dredge chicken in flour and shake off excess.
In a large skillet over medium high heat, melt 2 tablespoons of butter with 3 tablespoons olive oil. When butter and oil start to sizzle, add 2 pieces of chicken and cook for 3 minutes. When chicken is browned, flip and cook other side for 3 minutes. Remove and transfer to plate. Repeat with all remaining pieces of chicken, adding more butter and olive oil to the pan as needed. Transfer the last of the chicken to plate. Remove pan from heat.
Into the pan add the wine and lemon juice. Return to stove and bring to boil, scraping up brown bits from the pan. Return all the chicken to the pan and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove chicken to platter. Add 2 tablespoons butter to sauce and whisk vigorously. Pour sauce over chicken and garnish with parsley.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Joey - My family is not too big on wine in their food (what do they know?), so I just substitute chicken broth for the wine and it works out fine. Also, another tip is to add chopped fresh chives right at the end -- it adds another dimension of flavor, as the Food Network would say. So good!
your favorite sister

Anonymous said...

WOW! Joey~ THIS was SO good!
AS many may know...I do not posess what one might refer to as, "culinary savvy". But Marc (my insignificant other) and I made this Saturday night and it was BRILLIANT! Marc wanted to make some Anthony Bourdain nonsense but I said, "let me introduce you to a little thing called, 'cookingwithjoey.com' "...
his life will never be the same. And Joey, he said he never thought to put the chicken in bags before he pounded it so he loved that idea.
BRAVO!