Chicken piccata

Serves: 6
Course: Main Course
Cooking Time: 0 hr 20 mins

Ingredients

  • Serves six
  • 6 free range Irish chicken breasts
  • 300g flour
  • Salt and ground white pepper
  • Drizzle of olive oil (for each of two pans)
  • 750ml dry white wine
  • 120g capers
  • 4tbsp caper brine/juice
  • Juice of 2 lemons
  • 100g chopped parsley
  • 120g butter, cubed

Butterfly each breast of chicken: cut through it horizontally and open it up like the pages of a book, so you have a thin escalope. Season with fine sea salt and ground white pepper.

Place the flour on a plate or tray and pass each breast of chicken through it, dusting off the excess.

Heat two heavy-based, non-stick frying pans, then add a good drizzle of olive oil to each. Add three breasts of chicken to each pan and cook until golden, then turn the chicken and sear for two to three minutes, or until lightly coloured and sealed on the other side. The chicken should still be undercooked at this point as you need to allow time for the sauce to be made without over-cooking it.

Divide the wine between each pan. Bring to the boil then divide the lemon juice, caper juice and capers between the two pans.

Continue to boil rapidly until the wine is reduced by half. Cube the butter and divide between each pan.

Make sure to drop the butter in at the base of the pan where the handle meets the pan and then fold it into the sauce. This means you simply push the pan back and forth, creating a gentle wave between the butter and wine until such time as the butter fully dissolves and the sauce thickens and emulsifies.

Split the chopped parsley between the two pans. Spoon the chicken onto plates and top with the sauce. Serve with broccoli florets and linguine or baby potatoes.