Picky about piccata

Here's a tip from Annalena's vast experiences: whenever you read a recipe that says it's "easy," BE WARNED. An "easy" recipe may in fact be very simple to execute; however, I guarantee you that you will almost always walk away saying "that's not the way I thought it would taste."

Now, why is that? Well, if it's an easy recipe, many people are going to make it. And every single one of them will put his or her stamp on it. So, if you eat something in a restaurant, like it, look it up, see that the recipe you chose is easy, and make it, betcha it's not going to taste the same as it did. (There are other things to think about with restaurant cooking, like the amount of salt and fat that they use, as well as the high heat, but that's for another day).

So it is with chicken piccata. You've had this in some form or another. I KNOW you have. I make it. And when I was researching other recipes for making this dish, I found that they were all described as "easy." Then I read 12 of them. No two were identical. There were, indeed, very large differences, and none of them looked like mine. Such is the way it is with these easy recipes.

There are a few things that are "canonical" as my friend Jonathan would say, for this recipe: chicken, (DUH), butter, and lemon. Beyond that, chaos reigns, the center will not hold. Just about every recipe calls for dipping the chicken into seasoned flour and egg, and some follow with a breading, followed by frying in butter. Some fry without the breading. Some use chicken stock to make the sauce which follows, others do not. Just about all call for using lemon in the sauce, cooking it. Some call for parsley, some do not.

So, I guess my version of this dish is far from canonical. First, I do not flour or bread the chicken. To my taste, that takes away from the sauce, which is what it is all about here. Also, piccata calls, almost always, for very thin "scallopine" of chicken. Again, I abjure this, and use a thicker cut . I also combine the butter with olive oil, because otherwise, you use way too much butter, and in any event run a risk of burning the meat. Two final changes: I use capers in mine, and I add the lemon at the end. Capers, because I like them. Lemon at the end, because I find that if you cook lemon juice, you lose the brightness and acidity you associate with the flavor.

OK, here we go. Read through mine, and by all means, check others, and then, choose what appeals to you. That's what "easy" dishes are about.

Use salted capers. The ones that are under vinegar are a disgrace. The salted ones will keep in your cupboard forever. But you do have to get the salt off. So pour off about half a cup of them into a bowl, and cover them with water. While you prepare the rest of the food, drain the water a few times and replace it.

Juice half of a lemon and then slice the remaining half of it into thin slices.

Next, get about a pound of chicken breast - that is usually two, full halves of a breast of chicken. Salt and pepper it, but don't pound it thin.

Now, reach into your fridge and pull out that started bottle of white wine that you're saving for when you need that drink at the end of the day, and pour off half a cup. If you don't have wine, use chicken stock.

READY TO COOK. Preheat your oven to 400. Get 3 tablespoons of butter (unsalted), and 2 of olive oil (Annalena's "golden ratio" of cooking fat), in a big pan. Just as the butter melts, put in the chicken breast halves. Fry them on each side for about five minutes, and then put the whole thing in the oven for another five.

After the oven finish, take the pan out of the oven (BE CAREFUL), and remove the chicken to a plate while you finish the sauce. Pour off about 3/4 of the fat, and add a half cup of white wine. It will hiss, spatter, and reduce. Then, put the capers in, and turn up the heat . The wine will reduce further, and when it's down to about two tablespoons in the pan, turn off the heat, and add the lemon juice. Finally, when you plate the chicken, put the sliced lemons over it, as a nice garnish (you could, by the way, cook them a bit too).

Listen, if you're going to do a rich butter sauce, why not avoid the flour? I will confess that I DO love this dish when it is nice and crispy, but this is my current approach to this classic.

Give it a try and, like I say, investigate some other recipes, and make your own. If you call your version a "classic," chances are , no one will callyou out on it, and you will in fact have a new classic of your own.