Chicken Paillards
Posted by in Food
It’s been a while since I tried a completely new-to-me Martha dish. In fact, I had never heard of paillards. There’s a section in January Living all about paillards, which are essentially thin cuts of meat. To make chicken paillard, I butterflied chicken breasts, then pounded them flat. This was easy to do. The recipe itself was also simple – cook the chicken in butter and olive oil. Remove it from the pan and cook 1/4 minced shallot then add two lemons that have the rind removed and have been cut into segments. 3/4 cup of chicken stock also gets added. You cook it down and toss in a little butter at the end. It sounded simple and delicious.
It was simple, but it was not delicious. I liked the chicken cooked this way very much. It was tender and thin. The sauce, however, was horrendous. It was so incredibly sour that we couldn’t eat it. I don’t understand how anyone could think adding two entire lemons to this pan sauce could be a good idea. The photo in the magazine is deceiving – it shows a small amount of light brown pan sauce. Mine turned out lighter with big hunks of lemon in it – it looked like applesauce and as you can see, there was a lot of it. It was not appetizing at all.
I will definitely prepare chicken in this style again, but I’ll make a completely different sauce.
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You’re so brave trying these dishes! The chicken does look good this way.
How about sprinkling the top with fresh parsley? It’s a trick I learned in France. I promise the parsley sprinkle makes any dish look much more appetizing. Can it be that Martha has never suggested this?
I’ve been making Martha’s Chicken Paillard for years. I saw her do it on her old show. It’s such a quick, easy and tasy way to eat chicken. The best thing was my daughter who was young at the time I started making these, loved it that way. She used to be a very picky eater. I also use these in sandwhiches if there are any left overs.
Yours look fantastic Brette!
I have noticed that almost every recipe that I try of Martha’s that has citrus in it usually has WAY too much. I would definitely go on taste with anything that has lemon or lime in it. I don’t think that necessarily applies with her baked goods though.
I’ll keep an eye out for this in the future!
That would make it look nicer, but it would still be inedible I’m afraid! My mom puts parsley on just about everything. I’m too cheap to buy it most of the time.
I’ve made this twice now. The first time I didn’t have fresh lemons so I just used some lemon juice. It turned out DELICIOUS! So tonight I tried it with real lemons and you’re right, it was way too sour (I cut down the segments as they were cooking, which helped a little, but still not very good.)
Try it with some lemon juice instead and add some rosemary – it’s wonderful that way. I also really like it served on fresh spinach like in the magazine.
Good luck!
Thanks Kelly. That is a good tip. I always have a bottle of lemon juice in the fridge, but Martha frowns on it!