Chicken Kyiv is very famous dish that not only appears in the menu of Ukrainian restaurants, but also throughout the world. IT is known in Europe and America. It is often referred to in the movies, TV shows, and is one of the symbols of Ukrainian cuisine.
Chicken Kyiv is a chicken formed in cutlet with butter inside. Baked fried, and to oil you can add cheese, mushrooms, parsley, egg yolk. In old times oil was drummed into cutlet, and it made taste creamier, but then the cook found an easier way, just putting it inside, which greatly accelerated the process of cooking.
There are several stories about where the dish began, and one of them traces it to French cutlets. We stick to the version we love: a chef in Kyiv gave the dish its shape and the name that made it famous.
Adapted for a home kitchen by our editors from Yuriy Chernous's restaurant recipe. The chef starts from a whole chicken, cuts out the breast with the wing bone and deep-fries the cutlets at 160°C (320°F) before a short spell in the oven. The home version starts from boneless breasts, keeps the chef's dill butter, the butterfly-and-wrap method with the inner fillet as a lid and the double breading, and shallow-fries in a skillet before baking. A thermometer replaces guesswork, because a supermarket breast needs longer in the oven than the restaurant's 4–5 minutes. Not yet tested from this page.
The recipe as the chef cooks it in the restaurant.
Method
Mix the softened butter with the dill and a pinch of salt until evenly green.
Spoon the butter onto a sheet of cling film and roll it into a log about 2.5 cm thick, twisting the ends to seal.
Freeze the butter log for at least 30 minutes, until hard.
Pat the chicken breasts dry and pull off the inner fillet (the loose strip on the underside); keep it.
Pull the white tendon out of each inner fillet, holding its end with a paper towel and pushing the meat away with the back of a knife.
Lay each breast flat and cut horizontally into the thickest part, stopping 1 cm from the far edge, so it opens like a book.
Put the opened breasts and the inner fillets between two sheets of cling film and pound them gently to an even 5 mm.
Season the chicken lightly with salt and pepper.
Cut the frozen butter log into 4 equal pieces.
Place a piece of butter in the centre of each breast and cover it with an inner fillet.
Fold the sides of the breast over the fillet and roll it into a tight oval cutlet, closing any gaps where butter could escape.
Wrap each cutlet tightly in cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes to set the shape.
Put the flour, beaten eggs and breadcrumbs in three shallow dishes.
Unwrap the cutlets and coat each one in flour, shaking off the excess.
Dip each cutlet in egg, then roll it in breadcrumbs.
Dip each cutlet in egg and breadcrumbs a second time for a double coating.
Heat the oven to 200°C (400°F) and set a wire rack over a baking sheet.
Heat 1.5 cm of oil in the skillet to 170°C (340°F); a cube of bread should turn golden in about 30 seconds.
Fry the cutlets two at a time for 2–3 minutes on each side, until deep golden.
Transfer the cutlets to the rack.
Bake for 12–15 minutes, until a thermometer pushed into the meat (not the butter) reads 74°C (165°F).
Rest the cutlets for 3 minutes, then serve with mashed potatoes or rice and fresh vegetables.
Wash and dry the chicken. Cut wings at the joint, but leave untouched the last fillet, which connects to the breast.
Take away the skin from the breast. Make an incision along the keel bone. Cut to breast fillets with bones from the wings. Cleanse the bones from the meat. Department of Internal fillet with bone from the outside.
Cut tendon at the inner fillets (to chop not deformed during cooking).
Make shallow along the outer fillet (in a place where thicker fillets). Make a cut to the right and left, without cutting the fillets and cutting through like a book. Gently beat fillets in a package, or between two layers of the food film.
Green oil.
Wash, dry and finely cut dill. Melted butter connect with dill and salt and mix well. Put oil on the plastic wrap. Make roll and put in the freezer for 15-20 minutes. Frozen oil cut in half (two patties).
To chicken fillet add salt and pepper. In the middle of the outer fillet put frozen oil. Cover the inner fillet. Carefully wrap the butter, meat, that be sure that there are no gaps and form a cutlet.
Bread cutlets in flour (excess flour coward). Put the egg, then roll in bread crumbs, sank back into the egg and again in breadcrumbs. Get a double layout.
Heat the oil (160 degrees). Carefully place it into the hot oil. Fried to a crisp, 2-3 minutes on each side.
Put in the oven pre-heated to 200 ° C and bringing patties until it cooked. It is about 4-5 minutes.
Cutlets serve with boiled rice, mashed potatoes (french fries) and fresh vegetables.
What we changed for home
Whole-chicken butchery replaced with 4 boneless, skinless breasts with the inner fillet (tenderloin) Taking the breast off the carcass with the wing bone needs practice; ready breasts give the same cutlet.
Deep-frying replaced with shallow-frying in 1.5 cm of oil at 170°C (340°F) A deep pan of hot oil is a hazard at home and needs about 2 litres of oil. The cutlets only need a golden crust; the oven cooks them through. The oil starts a little hotter because cold cutlets cool a shallow pan quickly.
Oven time extended to 12–15 minutes and checked with a thermometer, 74°C (165°F) Home breasts often weigh 200 g; 4–5 minutes would leave the centre undercooked.
Butter frozen for 30 minutes and the shaped cutlets chilled for 30 minutes before breading Hard butter and a set shape are what stop the butter leaking out in the pan.
'Wheat bread' used as dried white breadcrumbs or panko The chef's bread is the crumb coating; ready-made crumbs give an even crust.
Flour, dill and salt added to the ingredient list The original method uses them but the list leaves them out.
The dish in the photograph was cooked by the restaurant for this story. Photo: Oleksandr Slyadnyev.
