Today I'm sharing a classic Chicken Kiev recipe — or rather, one that stays as close to the classic as possible while still being practical for home cooking. Not everyone knows that a classic Chicken Kiev is made not from ground chicken (though that's what many restaurants serve) but from a carefully pounded whole fillet wrapped around a piece of herb butter. The cutlets are deep-fried and then finished in the oven. The signature touch of Chicken Kiev is serving it with the bone in — to do that, you'd need to buy a whole chicken (or rather a young broiler), break it down in a specific way, separating the breast while keeping the wing bone attached at the shoulder joint. That gives you two fillet halves, each with a little bone sticking out the side. So to get 4 cutlets, as in my recipe, you'd need to break down 2 chickens — and then figure out what to do with all the leftover parts! So I just used store-bought chicken breast fillet, and the result was exactly the same, just without the bone — which, by the way, is purely decorative. I'd recommend doing the same!)) P.S. They turned out incredibly delicious — the chicken breast soaks up the butter and becomes wonderfully juicy, tender, and fragrant, while the crispy crust is the perfect finishing touch!
Ingredients:
- 4 chicken breast fillet halves
- 2 tbsp. flour for dredging
- 2 eggs
- 100 g breadcrumbs (~200 g white loaf)
- vegetable oil for deep-frying
- salt, pepper
- Filling:
- 150 g butter
- 6-7 sprigs of dill
- salt
How to cook chicken kiev
Mix together, then use two tablespoons to shape the butter into four portions. Place in the freezer until completely firm.
Prepare the fillets. I should mention that the fillets should be on the smaller side — each half no more than 200 grams. Mine were about 180 grams each, and the cutlets still came out quite large. If you use a bigger breast, the cutlets will be enormous. In that case, you'd need to cut and shape the fillet differently rather than using the classic method I describe below. That said, you can absolutely make this with any size fillet! Trim the small inner tenderloin from each fillet half.
On the breast itself, make one vertical cut, then two cuts branching outward from it to open up the flesh, and butterfly the fillet open in both directions.
Season with salt and pepper. Cover with plastic wrap and gently pound flat using the flat side of a meat mallet or a rolling pin.
Then fold over the other side to form a neat, elongated cutlet. Place the shaped cutlets in the freezer for 20–30 minutes (or longer) so they hold their shape better during frying.
Prepare the breadcrumbs. To get 100 g of breadcrumbs, I used 200 g of white bread loaf — I trimmed the crusts, sliced the bread thin, dried the slices in the oven, then blitzed them in a blender.
Heat the oil for deep-frying. For a true deep-fry, you need enough oil to completely submerge the cutlets — roughly 500–600 ml or more, depending on the size of your pot. I personally find that a bit wasteful for home cooking, and as it happened, I was almost out of vegetable oil, so I used 100 g of vegetable oil and 100 g of clarified butter (regular butter won't work here). If you go that route, just make sure to flip the cutlet to the other side while frying. The oil should be hot enough that it bubbles vigorously the moment you lower a cutlet in. Fry each cutlet until evenly golden all over, about 1–2 minutes per side.
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