Ale Kievdon Bleu?

Hello!

I got a good recipe for you lot..

A few weeks back, I was watching this documentary from BBC online, I forgot the title but it had series of episodes and it tackled processed food and how much real meat it had. Was quite an eye opening documentary if you are totally unaware of the foods you buy in a box and whats it made of. I knew some parts like chicken nuggets are made from scrap chicken thats left on the bone and white rubbery bone you get from the breast and some chemicals. but some food went to the extreme like for instance an "economy beef burger"only contains i think around 50% meat and the rest from ground bone,tongue and tendon and other joints from the cow!
and heres the relation why I came up with this recipe cause the other food in a box he checked out was Chicken Kiev. The ones you get from a box and just microwave usually only contains around 30% real chicken. Just like nuggets, the meat is made from other extenders, bones and chemicals. and whats worse is you could sell those kinds of Chicken Kiev with only 20% real chicken and its still legal!

Everything wouldn't have come to this if man was not obsessed with quick and microwaveable food. Thats reality for yah! So i got all inspired today, my main inspiration is the Chicken Kiev and how simple it is yet packed with rich flavour and comforting aroma. Well.. a sorta Kiev.

Chicken Kiev is usually made with chicken breast, inside theres a compound butter that has garlic, parsley and the occasional tarragon, breaded and shallow fried til golden brown.

Mine has the same methods in terms of procedure yet my compound butter is made with Basil, thyme (all dried herbs) and a little bit of Parmesan Cheese. Which explains why it kinda panned out as a Cordon Bleu.

I added some pepper flare of Spanish Paprika and Cayenne just to give it a little attitude. And to top it all off an Italian breadcrumb! Maybe i should've called it the European Poussin??

So first you will be needing:

2 Whole Chicken Breasts, without the skin and the tenders/tenderloins set aside.
1 whole egg lightly beaten
Salt, Cayenne and Spanish Paprika to taste

for the Italian Breadcrumbs:
2 slices of whole wheat bread (can use white bread), cubed
1/2 clove of garlic
1/2 teaspoon of dried basil
2 tablespoons of parmesan cheese

For the Breading
100gms (around 10 tablespoons) of All Purpose Flour
2 Tablespoons Garlic Powder (can use fresh garlic around 2 cloves)
Pinch of Salt
1/2 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper

For the Compound Butter:
100g Unsalted Butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon dried Basil
1/2 teaspoon dried Thyme
1 tablespoon Parmesan cheese

Now, dont be overwhelmed with all the ingredients. this is easy. and there are a lot of alternatives. like for breadcrumbs, if you don't have the time to make it fresh then use the ones you can buy at the shops, those japanese breadcrumbs for tempura.

You can ask the butcher to butterfly your chicken breasts so you don't have to do it yourself.

I think its a necessity to have garlic powder in your cupboards. Even for my fried chicken and steaks its the best flavouring. The local offering for an all in one mix is "Magic Sarap"but just the thought of using it I can hear all my chefs cursing at the back of my head. So just stick with the Garlic Powder!

So first, what you want to do is all the "Dry Ingredients" thats your breading and bread crumbs. You should take out the butter from the fridge at this time to let it soften.

Italian Breadcrumbs:
in a food processor, add all ingredients and mix til bread is chopped to fine pieces.

Wheat bread cut into cubes.

I'm just using Parmesan Cheese from a shaker. It is better to use the real thing!

Minced Dried Basil.

it should look like this.

Now for the Breading Same thing. Just add everything in the food processor and chopped till everything is well blended together (you can just whisk. but this process really takes out the lumps sometimes the garlic powder creates.

All Purpose Flour

Garlic Powder

Salt

Cayenne

Once all of that is done. Just put them in separate bowls for the breading process later.
Another easy step is your compound butter. Compound butter is just regular unsalted butter mixed with something maybe an herb or a spice. Maybe a bell pepper. Whatever you think goes well with it. Hard to get this wrong cause everything goes well with butter!
Add your herbs and garlic to the butter and mix till everything looks cohesive.

Just adding the cheese to the whole blend.

Now once you have all your components, we can now go on to the chicken. Sorry i had no photos of this process I did fillet and butterfly my own Chicken but its hard to take photos while handling raw chicken. and I'm doing this all by myself! So here are some photos.

took off the skin of the Chicken by hand. You can kinda scorch the translucent skin to separate it clean.

Season your fillets with Salt, Cayenne and Paprika

Rub it in and give it some love!!

When you have your fillet, you'd see a part of the chicken thats kind of hanging there and easily comes off the chicken, thats the tender. You take that and pound on it lightly. that will be the sort of encasing for our kiev and will lock in the compound butter so it wont leak out when we fry it.

thats the tender. Usually we see it made into chicken fingers!

After the light pounding.

In the middle of your butterflied chicken add a generous dollop of butter. Take each flap and cover the butter. Take a tender and cover any holes left that you think the butter would leak.


Okay, the basic process of breading chicken is Flour, egg, breading. For this recipe to get a good coat you do the flour and egg twice. So you dip the chicken in the flour, then the egg then the flour again then the egg then the Breadcrumbs. In bullet form:

-Flour
-Egg
-Flour
-Egg
-Breadcrumbs

It should look like this:

Test of patience comes in now. You have to let this rest in the fridge for about 40-50 mins. just when the butter hardens.

We are shallow frying this so in a pan add some corn oil or palm oil or a favourite is sunflower oil, whatever you fancy I just like how palm oil crispens the outsides. When the pan is hot not scorching hot add the Chicken breasts and cook for about 5-6 minutes on each side depending how big your chicken is. Mine is quite big so I did 6 mins on each side. Fry until golden brown.

What I do is I cut it in half take the butter that oozed out and drizzle it on rice or potatoes. Delicious!!

And then i cut it Tonkatsu style just to remind myself i'm asian. haha!

And thats it! I hope you guys enjoyed this recipe! let me know if you enjoyed making it. Great tip also is make a big batch of the Italian Breadcrumbs you can put it on everything baked or fried!

x