Chicken French has everything I love in a recipe. It's delicious and easy, frugal, yet fancy, and everyone loves it. Better yet, it has a vague, confusing history and completely preposterous name.This not-French recipe hails from the Rochester area of New York State, where it's a staple on virtually every Italian-American restaurant menu. It's something of a mystery why this recipe would have exploded in popularity in this one city in particular, but that's exactly what happened.
The origins of the recipe go something like this. Italian cooks in northern Italy have a sautéed veal dish called vitello francese, which uses a wine/lemon/butter pan sauce similar to ones used in France. The recipe comes to New York City with the first wave of Italian-American immigrants, where it becomes known by the locals as "Veal French."
Eventually, the recipe migrates to Rochester's large Italian-American community, where chicken is substituted for the more expensive and harder to find veal. The rest, as they say, is history – delicious, tender, moist, buttery history.Since I'm from the Rochester, NY area, it's a little surprising I haven’t done this one already. Thankfully, a wonderful dinner at my Aunt Joyce's on a recent trip home caused me to realize I hadn’t yet immortalized this hometown favorite. I really hope you give it a try. Enjoy!
Ingredients for about 4-6 portions:
1 1/2 lb boneless, skinless chicken breast
4 eggs, plus 2 tablespoon milk, beaten
1 cup flour
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
cayenne to taste
2 tablespoon olive oil, plus 1 tablespoon butter for sautéing
For the sauce:
Juice of 2 lemons
1/2 cup good white wine or dry sherry
1 cup vegetable broth or chicken stock
4 tablespoon cold butter, cut in cubes
1 tablespoon chopped Italian parsley
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
31 comments:
Bravo! Nice job! Just like Whitey would do it. Strangely, a lot of chef's who make this outside of Rochester and a breadcrumb layer afterwards.
Now I need to make this. maybe not today because it's a bit muggy out.
Thanks for the recipe!
Pete
This is a beautiful plate. I will give it a shot.
I am going to be making this for my wife and mother-in-law tomorrow. It looks delicious - nice and light, ideal for lunch on the balcony on a hot day...
as another SF resident who grew up in WNY, I never knew Rochester had its own food local cuisine beyond the Garbage Plate. I'm looking forward to seeing that as a video recipe some day!
Hi Chef John!
Does the cayenne make it spicy at all? My Midwestern palated hubby has an aversion to the taste of cayenne.
it does gives it a little heat. You could leave it out, but personally I think it would be easier to get a new husband.
Chef John,
Any sub to the dry sherry or white wine that is non-alcoholic?
Thanks!
LOL!
you can leave out the wine, and juts add a little extra lemon and broth.
Hi Chef John, is there a technique to cut chicken breast (like a butterfly or similar) to make a thick breast into scallopini or is pounding the only way to go?
Great video I really want to try this! Thank You!
I just love your blog and every video you made. And you are so funny sometimes really make me laugh a lot!
My brother is marrying a girl from Rochester! I will have to make this for her.
My friend is from Rochester, but his mom grew up in Dutch Town, so he's never had this...but he is totally stoked for me to make this for him soon!!
Made this last night. It was fantastic. Except for the fact where I almost started a fire, forgetting to turn the flame off before the lemon juice went in.
You don't have to have starch all the time, but some yummy, crusty bread to slather up the delicious sauce would be terrific!
Question for Chef John: Can I substitue Lactaid for milk? Would that make the taste totally different?
never cooked with it, but you can just leave the milk out.
I left the milk out (I couldn't bring myself to make a third trip to the store... always have lemons in the kitchen!) and it turned out fine.. perhaps a bit eggy? Wife told me it's another keeper -thanks, Chef John!
I love Rochester! This dish makes me miss home. I have a question, how important is the sherry or the wine for the sauce? Can I go without using it at all?
I made this - and everyone loved it! No more falling asleep halfway through a dry chicken breast! I used beef stock - this recipe is quite flexible. I haven't tried a recipe of yours that I haven't loved, yet!
Looks an awful lot like Picatta sans capers? Wish you would do a picatta recipe! I've got 1 or 2 I do, but somehow seems more legitimate if it comes from you!
Ed
This was so delicious! I don't drink so I didn't have any wine, but I did have some red cooking wine so I used that. Wonderful! Will definately make this again and again, thanks Chef John!
Had to go to a party yesterday for about 30 people. Pounded out some cheap breasts and cut them into bite size pieces BEFORE cooking. Used the wine for the sharper taste. HUGE success - first thing gone (and there was ALOT!).
keep up the good work. I have turned alot of people on to your site.
btw: making your baked chicken parmy tonight MMMMMMM
Chicau
In other parts of the world I think we call this Chicken Francaise.
:-)
made this TWICE! came out so good with my gougeres! (really starting to love and get into the whole cooking thing) so happy that i found your site!
So glad, thanks!
Chef John,
What is a 'good' white wine for cooking??? I wanna make a little trip to the liquor store tomorrowwww :)
Thanks a bunch Chef!!!!
Tried it yesterday! Fantastico! I had a big bowl of raw garlic salad (just a lot of diced garlic with 1 diced shallot, herbs, oil, vinegar, salt&pepper, pinch a cayenne - even better on the next day!) on the side, it is delicious with it!
I have been eating Chicken French my entire life!! My mother has been making this recipe for over 40 years and it's still my favorite Chicken recipe of all time! I just want to thank you for posting this so everyone else can love this as much as my family and I do that are not from Rochester!
Nice little dish. Although the juice of two lemons seemed a little much. We ended up using one lemon and wish we would have reduced it to half a lemon.
Two things I did not know before watching this video. First, I did not know eggs would get bitter if cooked too hot. Secondly, I thought your camera was on a tripod. Thank you for making us think we really can cook.
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