Chicken Paillard
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Serves: 4 people with a side dish
- 2 skinless chicken breasts (around 250g/8.8ozs per breast)
- Salt and pepper
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 2 tablespoons/40ml/1.4flozs oil
- 40g/1.4ozs butter, divided in two
- 1 shallot, peeled and diced
- 3 teaspoons capers (baby capers ideally)
- 90g/3ozs pitted green olives, halved
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
- 1 teaspoon honey
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1/2 cup/125ml/4flozs white wine or chicken stock
- 1/4 cup toasted almonds and rocket or frisée salad to serve
Note: please have all the ingredients ready to cook before starting. The dish cooks quite quickly.
Step 1 - Place the flour in a shallow large plate. Take the chicken breast and cut into the thickest part of the top of the breast. Slice through and you should end up with a heart shaped chicken breast. Cover with cling film and pound with a meat mallet using the smooth side so that the breast is uniformly thin around half a centimetre thin or a quarter of an inch. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and dredge through the flour.
Step 2 - Heat a frying pan on medium high heat and add the oil and half of the butter. Pan fry two of the paillards at a time, they will take up the whole pan. Cook for 5 minutes turning halfway. Place the cooked paillards on a serving plate and cook the remaining 2 paillards.
Step 3 - Add the remaining half of the butter to the pan and saute the shallots and capers until the shallot is soft and fragrant. While it is cooking mix the garlic, Dijon, honey and lemon juice into a paste. Add this to the pan once the shallots are cooked with the olives and sauté for 1 minute. Then add the wine or stock and allow to simmer until the sauce reduces and becomes velvety (it should take less than 5 minutes to do this). Spoon this mixture all over the chicken paillards. Add rocket on top and toasted almonds and serve.