Italian Chicken Francaise

:lol:

If I were doing the dish according to your first recipe, I would also add chopped shallots (one big one is plenty) to the sauce, chopped rinsed/drained capers for salt plus flavor, and pepper. And some chopped flat-leaf (Italian) parsley at the end to smooth out the taste and add some color contrast.

Picking up in your recipe from where you remove the chicken from the pan and drain off the excess fat, follow Kuan's instructions to saute the shallot in the same pan, then add the wine and reduce it to almost dry. (You'll keep the flavors from the wine, but lose the water and alcohol.) Then add the lemon juice, let it reduce a little, and take the pan off the heat. Swirl in the cold butter bit by bit -- this will thicken your sauce with no need for flour. Stir in the capers and parsley and pour it over the chicken and pasta. This won't give you a huge amount of sauce, but it will be enough to coat everything lightly -- much more Italian than having everything swimming in sauce. :D

You see, if you melt the butter first, you turn it back into liquid, which is why Kuan said Wrong! Think about how softened butter (as you might use in baking) still stays thick and creamy. When you swirl cold butter into the hot pan sauce, you are melting it just enough for it to soften, but not to turn liquid.

And adding flour just give you a glommy, pasty, floury-tasting sauce (why Kuan was right with his Wrong!) -- not the light, elegant one you want for this dish.

Heavy cream is your choice.

Wine selection is fine.

Chicken is chicken, don't know how you can make it more tender. Perhaps don't overcook it.

I would start practicing with two batches of sauce. Do the first without the cream. If it breaks, do the second with the cream, and then drizzle the first into the second slowly while whisking vigorously.

Chefs: Has anyone fixed a broken beurre blanc by simply whisking it into cream?

Please please STOP DREDGING YOUR BUTTER IN FLOUR!!!! Sorry to shout :o but that will only add pasty flour to your sauce, AND prevent the butter from doing its job of thickening.

One more time: take the pan with the sauce off the heat, then whisk or swirl in your cold butter. You only want to soften the butter to the point where it's creamy, NOT melt it completely.

You can easily scale up Kuan's beurre blanc recipe to make a bigger batch. But are you sure you really want to eat a lot of it, all the time? :eek: :D

As for the chicken, yes, if you pound it it will be somewhat softer (pounding breaks up some of the muscle fibers). But Kuan's point about not overcooking it is more important.

Well done!

Pull on/off/on/off/on/off the heat to keep it at optimum temperature. It's a feel thing.

Brining the breats for an hour or two prior to cooking adds a lot of tenderness.

Brining does help keep the chicken moist, yes, but for that size piece of meat a brief time is actually better. Remember, the cut for this dish is usually skinless boneless breast. Thirty minutes or so is enough.

Look on the package and see if there's added "solution" first.