Day Four: Chicken Kiev

If I didn't know any better (and I was in this position), I'd assume that Chicken Kiev had Slavic origins and not think about it beyond that. However, that's not the case. According to this source and many others that a quick search on Google led me to, Chicken Kiev was created by a French chef in the 1700s due to Russia's love for foreign influence. However, this source (which actually links to other sources) states that Chicken Kiev's origins are hard to discern and it might have either been a Ukranian invention or a Soviet invention. In short, the origins of Chicken Kiev are as confusing as the inspiration behind St. Petersburg. (You may interpret this as a slight against Peter I.)

There was a small food court in the ritzy mall next to the hotel I had stayed in at St. Petersburg. After my classmates had convinced me that eating at this food court was a good value, I went there and was thrilled that they had Chicken Kiev.

Isn't it pretty? The food had a good flavor, but I cut open the Chicken Kiev expecting to find delicious molten butter and there was none of it. None! For something that looked so good, I was thoroughly disappointed. This irked me so much that I swore I had to cook it myself when I returned home. And so I did!

I checked in The Russian Heritage Cookbook for a Chicken Kiev recipe, but the one it had contained truffles and that's far too rich for my blood. I Googled and used this recipe instead, which had ingredients I could readily access (and mostly had).

Click the link below to get to the cooking!
Here's everything I needed to cook the dish (minus nutmeg, which I did not have):

I've breaded chicken before, but I'd never filled it beforehand.

I mashed room temperature butter together with a squeeze of lemon, some dried parsley, salt, and pepper. The nutmeg would have gone here as well if I had it. I shaped the compound butter into a small log and put it into the fridge.

I encased the chicken breast in plastic wrap and pounded the life out of it. I did this so violently that the plastic wrap tore.

The butter wasn't in the fridge for very long when it was time to wrap it in the chicken. Now that I think about it, it would have made more sense if I had wrapped it the other way.

This is the neatest this chicken and butter loaf will ever look.

I tucked in the sides and wrapped the chicken around the butter, making sure the chicken completely covered the butter so it wouldn't leak out as it cooked.

The start of every good breading is flour (as this recipe acknowledged!), so the chicken was lightly coated with a flour, salt, and pepper mixture.

Here are the other two breading components, a lightly beaten egg and panko breadcrumbs! I like panko because it's crispier and has a less breadcrumby flavor than storebought breadcrumbs. If I had bread in the house, storebought breadcrumbs would have been another option.

The chicken was dipped into the egg, the breadcrumbs, the egg again, and the breadcrumbs again before being stored in the fridge for an hour. I skimped on the time slightly and I don't think it negatively affected the chicken.

Frying time! The recipe called for the chicken to be deep fried, but why bother when a smaller amount of oil does the job just as well?

Look at the color on that breading! A few more turns of the chicken, and...

...done! I cooked up some broccoli to go with it so I could pretend I'm eating well while eating something that's filled with butter and fried in oil.

But here's the important question: does it ooze with butter when cut open?

It did! The breading was crunchy and delicious, the seasoning was just right, and there was a lake of butter to dip the broccoli in. Success! This is what Chicken Kiev should be.

It was much too big for one person to eat, so I gave the other half of it to my father. As he approved of the bites I gave him while I was eating it, he was delighted to have another homecooked lunch to take to work.

Now that I know I can fill chicken and not screw it up, I plan to make Chicken Cordon Bleu sometime in the near future.