Kotlet de volaille: Polish chicken Kiev with herb butter that flows out when cut
A chicken breast pounded thin, wrapped around a piece of cold butter with parsley, dill and garlic, double-breaded and deep-fried, then finished in the oven. Cut it and the butter runs onto the potatoes. Three rules: frozen butter, chilled rolls before breading, a double coating. Then nothing leaks into the oil.
Your own work in that: 1 h 5 min.
- Herb butter 10 min
- Butter freezing 30 min
- Pounding and rolling 20 min
- Rolls chilling 30 min
- Breading 10 min
- Frying and baking 25 min
Step by step
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Make the herb butter and freeze it
Mix the soft butter with finely chopped parsley, dill, crushed garlic, lemon juice and salt. Shape into a 2 cm thick log on baking paper, wrap and freeze 30 minutes. Then cut into 4 pieces of about 25 g.
Ingredients: 100 g butter · ½ bunch flat-leaf parsley · ½ bunch dill · 2 cloves garlic · ½ pcs lemon, juice · ½ tsp salt
TipCold, hard butter melts only inside the cutlet, once the coating has sealed. Soft butter escapes through a gap in the meat before the cutlet sets.
A log of herb butter into the freezer
Pound the breasts thin
Cut each breast lengthways, not all the way through, and open it like a book. Put it between two layers of cling film and pound with a mallet into an even sheet 5 mm thick, from the centre outwards. Salt and pepper both sides.
Ingredients: 4 pcs chicken breasts · 1 tsp salt · ½ tsp black pepper · 80 g plain flour · 3 pcs eggs · 200 g breadcrumbs · 1000 ml oil for frying
TipEven thickness is the condition: thinner spots split in frying and the butter escapes. If you make a hole, patch it with a piece of meat trimmed from the edge.
A 5 mm sheet, even, no holes
Wrap the butter in the meat
Put a piece of frozen butter in the centre of the sheet. Fold the sides in, then roll tightly from the wider edge into an oval parcel, so the butter is covered by meat on every side. Wrap each roll in film, twist the ends and refrigerate 30 minutes.
TipChilling sets the shape: cold meat stiffens and the film keeps the parcel tightly rolled. Breading a warm, loose roll ends with it unrolling in the oil.
Sides in, roll tight, film, fridge
Double-bread
First peel the potatoes and put them on to boil in salted water: they will be ready with the cutlets. Three plates: flour, beaten eggs, breadcrumbs. Coat each roll in flour, egg and breadcrumbs, then again in egg and breadcrumbs, pressing with your palm. The double layer is the armour that keeps the butter in.
Flour, egg, crumbs, egg, crumbs
Deep-fry
Heat the oven to 180 °C. Heat the oil in a pot to 170 °C (a piece of bread browns in a minute). Fry the rolls in two batches of 2, each for 6–7 minutes, turning, until evenly golden brown (about 15 minutes in all). Lift onto a rack.
TipOil too hot: dark coating, raw centre. Too cool: the coating soaks up oil. A kitchen thermometer solves it; without one, the bread test.
170 °C, two at a time, 6–7 minutes
Finish in the oven
Set the rack with the rolls on a tray and put in the oven for 10 minutes. This cooks the centre through without burning the coating; the chicken inside should reach 74 °C. Meanwhile drain the potatoes and mix sliced cucumber with sour cream and a pinch of salt.
Ingredients: 800 g potatoes · 1 pcs cucumber · 100 g sour cream, 18 % · ½ pcs lemon
Ten minutes on a rack at 180 °C
Serve at once
Cutlet on the plate, potatoes, cucumber salad and a lemon wedge beside. Cut at the table: the butter should flow onto the potatoes. It doesn't reheat well; fry only as many as you will eat.
Cut at the table, butter onto the potatoes
Before you start
With cheese
Add 30 g grated hard cheese to the butter, or lay a slice of cheese next to the butter: the centre turns stringy and even richer.
In a pan instead of a pot
Fry in 2 cm of oil 4 minutes a side, then 12 minutes in the oven. A slightly less even coating, the same result.
The butter leaked
Butter too soft, a hole in the meat, or a single coating. Next time: freezer, careful pounding, twice through egg and crumbs.
Nutrition
per 100 gStep photos are computer-generated from the recipe.
