Petti di pollo al burro (Butter-Braised Chicken Breasts)

Frank18 March 2017mains/secondi piatti, Toscana65 Comments

In Italian Food, the 1954 book that introduced the English to real Italian cookery, Elizabeth David includes a recipe for petti di pollo alla fiorentina, or Florentine-Style Chicken Breast. She says it is a “lovely way of cooking a good chicken, and has a nice, extravagant air”. And indeed it is. But the dish passed little noticed, as far as I am aware, until recently, when a slightly more elaborate version of the dish offered by Trattoria Sostanza in Florence under the name petti di pollo al burro became a minor gastronomic legend, and made Sostanza an obligatory stop for foodies visiting Florence.

It’s an incredibly simple dish. Nothing more, in essence, than chicken breast seasoned and floured, then browned and braised in copious amounts of butter. But the result is a revelation. The butter bath transforms a normally bland cut of chicken into something extraordinary and yes, extravagant. Italian cookery is renowned for this kind of simple recipe that produces almost magically exquisite results.

Ingredients

Serves 2

2 boneless chicken breasts
1oog (1 stick) of butter
Flour
Salt and pepper

Optional:

A squeeze of lemon juice
A sprig of thyme or sage
An unpeeled clove of garlic

Directions

To start, trim the chicken breasts of any stray gristle and remove the ‘tenderloins’ if you find them still attached to the breasts. Flatten them out slightly with the back of a skillet.

Season the breasts generously with salt and pepper. Flour them lightly.

Melt half the butter in a braising pan over medium-high heat. When the butter has stopped foaming and begins to turn color, add the chicken breasts, ‘top’ side down, and brown them for 5-6 minutes.

Turn the chicken breasts over. Lower the heat to a minimal flame and add the rest of the butter, cut into small pieces, along the thyme and garlic if using. As soon as it melts, baste the breasts with the butter and cover the pan tightly. Let them braise undisturbed for 15 minutes. (Alternatively, you can transfer the pan to a gentle oven about 160C/325F.)

Uncover the pan. Taste and adjust the butter sauce for seasoning, and remove the garlic and thyme if you used it. Optionally, sprinkle the lemon juice over everything.

Serve the chicken breasts right away, napping them generously with the butter.

Notes on Petti di pollo al burro

Needless to say, with a recipe this simple, the quality of the main ingredients—chicken and butter—will make all the difference. Take your breasts from a good free-range chicken. They are far more expensive than factory-farmed chickens but worth every penny, in my book. To save money, buy the chicken whole and cut out the breasts by simply running a knife blade down the breast bone to split the skin, then slide it down between the breast and the rib cage. The breasts should come out quite easily. The skin can be left on if you like, but generally the breasts are cooked skinless. I usually cut up the thighs, legs and wings and save them for a braised chicken dish such as pollo ai peperoni (Chicken with Bell Peppers) or pollo all’ischitana. I use the carcass for making homemade broth.

As for the butter, cultured butter—that is, butter made from cream that has been allowed to ferment slightly—has so much more flavor than so-called ‘sweet’ butter. It works wonders in a dish like this. Cultured butter is sometimes marketed as ‘European-style’ or ‘Old Fashioned’ butter.

Variations

Elizabeth David’s recipe calls for petti di pollo al burro none of the optional ingredients—just chicken, butter, salt and pepper. At Trattoria Sostanza they dip the chicken breasts in egg after flouring them, in the manner of pollo fritto alla toscana (Tuscan Fried Chicken), before searing and braising them in the butter. The lemon juice is a suggestion from Emiko Davies (although some sources say this is how it’s done at Sostanza). The addition of garlic and thyme or sage to the butter is my own humble contribution to the canon.

A quick tip

Sometimes chicken breast gives off liquid when it cooks; if it’s excessive, remove the breasts before reducing it down to concentrate the flavors.

The ‘tenderloin’ of the chicken breast is that smaller filet that lies underneath the larger, main breast, closest to the rib cage. You can easily remove it with either a knife or your fingers. If you like you can leave it on the breast if you like, of course, but the breast will cook more evenly without it.

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