La Lama Mountain Ovens
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The best of the recipes, techniques, and methods practiced by our large extended Italian-American family - with emphasis on the legacy handed down to us by the original immigrants.

This is a cookbook-in-process project. If you try any of these recipes please let us know how they turn out, whether or not you had any difficulties, and any clarifying improvements you might recommend to make them foolproof. We will of course acknowledge genuine "test-kitchen" assistance.

Family Secrets #19

Chicken Piccata

By Ray Zara, La Lama Mountain Ovens

Chicken piccata is sautéed chicken breasts in a lemon butter sauce. I think that statement is pretty straightforward. However, with the advent of plastic lemon juice and powdered, instant sauces, this classic dish has been turned into something other than a classic. I no longer order the dish when out to dinner unless I know for sure that it is the real thing. To add insult to injury, I have seen white wine and even mushrooms in sauces called piccata, done under the premise of being trendy and adventuresome. I call it amateurish and disrespectful.

This is the first recipe we are publishing that falls into the category of sauté. To successfully accomplish this technique, some thought has to be give to the small amount of fat that must be present in the sauté pan to begin the process. Most folks in a home kitchen will use olive oil or whole butter. What is really required is a fat that will resist scorching under high heat. In my estimation there is none better than clarified butter. Clarified or drawn butter is the essence of pure butter, simple to make, has an almost unlimited shelf life, and by the nature of its properties will outperform most other fats in the sauté pan. I believe that every serious home cook should keep a small supply of this ingredient on hand. For the chicken piccata recipe and future sauté recipes to come, I will outline the process to change whole butter into clarified or drawn butter.

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Clarified Butter

Place one pound of whole butter in a small, open topped double-boiler. Place the double boiler on the absolute lowest temperature that you can maintain for about eight hours. You can accomplish the task in the oven overnight if your oven is gas and has a high pilot heat. The butter is ready to "draw" when the salt solids floating on the top become firm and you can see the milk solids firmly on the bottom. Use a tablespoon to very gently gather and discard all of the floating solids. Without shaking the top part of the double boiler, very slowly pour off the butter into a bowl until you have drained off all that you can without the milk solids spilling over. One pound of whole butter should yield about 10 ounces of clarified butter. Clarified butter has many uses in the kitchen. Besides its outstanding performance in the sauté pan, it has no equal in dunking steamed clams, chunks of freshly boiled or steamed lobster, or a firm fish like monk fish. It also does a great job at breakfast for frying eggs or preparing a nice omelet.

If you’re going to call it piccata, capers are one of the few permissible options. I prefer mine without, but their addition is a matter of personal preference. If you decide to use capers in the dish you will want to pay particular attention when adjusting the pan sauce for salt.

Chicken Piccata

Total Ingredients:

• 2 whole boneless skinless chicken breasts (4 halves)
• 1 cup all purpose flour for dredging
• 1/4 cup clarified butter
• 1 fresh lemon
• 2 small garlic cloves, mashed
• 3/4 cup chicken broth
• 1 Tbls. finely chopped fresh parsley
• 1 Tbls. whole butter
• salt to taste
• 2 Tbls. capers (optional)

Step One: Prepare chicken breasts

Remove the tenders from the breasts if they are present, the long finger-like strips. Trim all fat and sinews and remove the thin membrane covering the breasts. Butterfly the breasts starting from the plump lobe side. Press firmly with the palm of your hand to achieve uniform thickness. Do not pound with mallet.

Step Two: Sauté chicken breasts

Place a 10", heavy bottomed sauté pan on high heat and add enough of the clarified butter to coat the bottom. When fat is hot enough to make a drop of water sizzle, immediately dredge the chicken breasts in the flour plate, shake of excess and place in the pan. Do not dredge in advance or the flour will get pasty. Shake pan frequently to avoid sticking and continue until bottoms are golden brown. Turn breasts in the pan and reduce heat to medium. Cut ends from the lemon and make four thin slices (about 1/2 of the lemon), place sliced lemon in pan and squeeze the juice from the remaining half into the pan. Add mashed garlic and immediately deglaze the pan by pouring at least 1/2 inch of chicken broth in it. Add parsley, the tablespoon of whole butter, and capers if you are using them.

Step Three: The finish

Continue cooking until chicken is done. If all is perfect, the pan sauce will form right when the chicken is finished. If the pan sauce has not yet come together, remove chicken from sauté pan and place on warm plates, turn heat to high and quickly reduce pan sauce to the proper consistency. Spoon a generous amount of sauce over the breasts in the plate and top each breast piece with one of the cooked lemon slices

Some additional tips on this technique. Never place a sauté item in a cold pan as it will absorb fat and become greasy. When a recipe calls for pounded thin chicken breasts, use the butterfly method instead. It retains the delicate consistency of the chicken breast. Using the mallet to pound chicken breasts very thin has its place in certain instances such as a roulade, but for straight sauté, butterflying is the way to go. Always use fresh ingredients in your sauté, plastic lemon, dried garlic, and parsley flakes just do not work. For a true piccata sauce never add white wine in the sauté pan with the fresh lemon. A white wine butter sauce is a sauce unto its own.

This technique works extremely well using thin medallions of veal to create a wonderful veal piccata.

Altitude Adjustment: None required.