#20 Ukraine

Chicken Kiev

Anyone of our parents’ generation always has ta similar response to a chicken Kiev: “ooh, that takes me back to eating out in the seventies. You’d have your prawn cocktail starter then you’d have your chicken Kiev or beef stroganoff...” It’s usually followed with some sort of derogatory remark like “dead naff” and it makes me sad that the above DP (dinner party) classics are no longer on trend because they’re all just that: classics.

There are few greater pleasures in life than cutting through that crisp exterior, into the succulent breast for that eruption of molten garlic herb butter - the ultimate comfort food. Similarly, there aren’t many events that could occur on your dinner plate as tragic as a leaky Kiev. This dish, just like the modern gymnastics scoring system, is all in the execution.

History

The origins of the chicken Kiev are unknown. Rumours of its magnificence go back to the early 19th century in Kiev’s hotels, while some attribute its creation to the great French chefs of the day. The latter is certainly believable; most of the tastiest things have some kind of French ancestry.

The formula

Always a chicken breast, on the bone or boneless. As an eater of many a Kiev, I think the bone adds a certain pizazz but is completely unnecessary. Bone or no bone, the breast is stuffed and sealed tightly to safely imprison the butter package.

The crispy coating is a simple flour, egg wash, breadcrumbs.

In terms of the goods inside, some olden day Russian recipes use only butter in the centre (bland), lemon zest makes an appearance in some recipes (could work), Americans use blue cheese (yum, but totally different dish) and Jamie Oliver puts bacon in his (further discussed below).

Parsley (and sometimes tarragon) and garlic are without a doubt the flavours of a Kiev. This is the tried and tested combination that has become the DP classic our parents enjoyed whilst sipping on Pernod.

Method

There are several questions one must address before attempting to make their first ever homemade CK:

· Do I freeze the butter and the chicken after each step to delay the butter melting?

· To bacon or not to bacon?

· Single or double coat of crumbs?

· Shall I fry it, fry it then put it in the oven, or just use the oven?

I allowed myself two shots at this: two breasts, two methods.

1. Chef John's CK. This is a simple garlic and parsley butter. The breast is pounded thin and wrapped around the butter into a ball. Plenty of freezer use is advised in this recipe. Flour, egg, crumbs are as per best practice. I fried on each side before finishing in the oven. There’s a little cayenne pepper sprinkled onto the coasting before cooking. I sadly did not achieve a full seal around the butter on wrapping and naively dismissed the structural defect. The majority of the butter was therefore lost in cooking. Quite a sorry sight on the inside. Still tasty but ever so slightly dry and no buttery magma.

2. Jamie Oliver's CK. The website gives the difficulty rating as “not too tricky”. I beg to differ.

The butter is enhanced with parsley, garlic and cayenne pepper and chopped crispy bacon. I see the bacon as an unorthodox move and not entirely in the spirit of a CK but when have you ever regretted adding bacon?!

Chilling the butter is the only time in this recipe you are advised to use the fridge. An incision is made in the breast for the butter. My incision was too enthusiastic (doomed from the start) so I added some chilling time after stuffing and coating to see if I could salvage it. You are given the option to shallow fry on each side for a couple of minutes before finishing in the oven or doing all of the cooking in the oven. I opted for the latter.

The coating, although crispy and delicious, was somewhat anaemic in appearance, a direct result of the oven baking. I lost a lot of butter in the oven through my extra hole on the breast invert so nothing exciting on slicing but a mightily delicious piece of meat: moist, buttery and full of garlic. The bacon: unusual in the setting but thoroughly enjoyable (it is bacon after all).