I had pictures. I was going to do a lovely Thanksgiving edition with not one, but two dishes. I made a lovely spinach gratin as well as roasted butternut squash for Thanksgiving dinner. The process was lovingly documented. Then, with one slip of the finger, my camera's memory card was erased leaving me quite despondent. I could have cooked during the long holiday weekend. Instead, I chose to sulk and watch Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York back-to-back.
But I was back in the kitchen last night and tried out a recipe I had been meaning to make for a long time: Chicken Piccata.
I love chicken piccata. The sauce has a nice crisp taste and if there is cream in the sauce, it tastes rather luxurious and silky. Considering that the ingredients are inexpensive, you get a lot for your money and can easily entertain with this recipe.
Ina's recipe for chicken piccata particularly appealed to me because it does not include capers. Whatttttt?! I know! Capers are always in piccata! That's just craziness! Well, Ina doesn't put them in her piccata. And since I am not fond of capers, I went with it.
Here are the ingredients - pretty basic stuff. I'll tell you right here that I didn't fully follow the directions. The recipe in the book called for regular chicken breasts that you flatten. I opted for the 30 Minute Meal timesaver and bought thin-sliced chicken cutlets. I know I'm getting less chicken that way, but the time and effort saved is well worth it for me.
Here's a shot of the pristine dredging and breading station before the flour is everywhere, egg is dripping and breadcrumbs are clumpy.
When I took a cooking class a few years ago, the instructor told us that we really only wanted a fine coating of flour. It was very important to get rid of the excess flour, so she recommended "spanking" the flour off. I am not joking. She showed us by lightly spanking the chicken breast she was holding. It works. The excess flour fell off and the chicken had a really delicate dusting. It works better than just shaking the excess flour off. So yes, I spank my meats.
I also wanted to mention that I have quit using regular breadcrumbs for the most part. Ina's recipe calls for regular breadcrumbs, so that is what I used, but in all other instances I now use panko. Now panko is nothing new to me since I am Japanese. However, its suddenly become the darling of Food Network chefs. They all pronounce it
"paan-ko" or "pank-o." Given, it does look like the word "pancake" so I can understand, but it still hurts the ear. Its "pahnko." Anyway, I now use panko in all the places I used to use breadcrumbs - all breaded meats, meatloaf, and gratin tops. I find that it's just lighter and browns better.
Here is the chicken browning in the saute pan. It will finish cooking in the oven. I have to watch this carefully as I'm prone to burning breading.
The finished chicken. The oven has made the breadcrumbs very crunchy. Yay!
Time to make the sauce. This sauce is very quick and easy to make. I think it really only takes about 5 minutes. All the ingredients go into the pan. Ina says to add the juiced lemon rinds to sauce to infuse more lemon taste. I'm a little scared. Ina really likes her citrus. This could be really strong.
I'm just noticing that in my pictures, the lemon rinds look rather ... nipply. Anyway, the sauce reduces and I take it off the heat and add some butter to thicken it. Here is the finished sauce:
Here is the finished product plated. I think it looks rather good! I don't garnish it with lemon slices, but the drizzled sauce over the top and the parsley it quite presentable. Good enough for dinner anyway!
The Review
Excellent! I am so in love with this dish, I really am. I thought adding the lemon rind would make the sauce over powering, but it didn't. It's very good. Adding some half and half or cream would make it sooo good and very wicked delicious. Finishing the chicken in the over was a good choice. It wasn't overcooked and the coating was very crunchy. I still think it would have been better with the panko, but cannot say that the regular breadcrumbs weren't tasty. I served the chicken with some mashed potatoes and a salad. Joel, who is not crazy about lemon-flavored foods, was happy with the recipe and said that he would happily eat it again. Very good recipe and I highly recommend it.
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