Chicken Francese

It seems that any time Laura and I go out to dinner, I always order chicken francese. I'm obsessed with it. I've tried it all around town —  ,  and  — and I've yet to find a restaurant whose francese matches Laura's mother, Vivian's recipe. If I had to rate them though, I'd say Blue Moon's has the best francese, but it's usually a special, so it's not always on the menu.

So this week, I decided to share Vivian's recipe with you, as I feel it's almost criminal to keep this secret gem to myself. I do all my food shopping at Waldbaum's on Sunrise Highway because it always has two for $5 sales and its prices are cheaper than King Kullen. So here's what you'll need (about $24 total, depending on what kind of wine you buy):

• Thinly-sliced chicken breast
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1 shallot
• flour
• two eggs
•  1  1/2 tablespoons of butter
• 1  1/2 cups of chicken stock
• 3 lemons

This is a really easy recipe, but it does take about 45 minutes to make. First, make an egg wash (two egg yolks mixed with some water). Coat the cutlets in the egg wash, then flour them. Toss some olive oil into a pan and fry the cutlets on a medium heat. You want a nice, brown crispy edge to the cutlets, which should take about six minutes on each side. Once the cutlets are done, place them in a cooking dish and put an aluminum tent over it to keep them hot. Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees, as you'll need it further down the line.

Chop up the entire shallot and add it to the empty pan (on a low to medium heat). Add a tablespoon of butter and sautee the shallots until they are soft. Once they soften, splash a 1/2 cup of white wine in the pan to de-glaze it. Next, add a cup and a half of chicken stock, the juice from two lemons and a handful of parsley.

Turn the heat down to low, as you want the sauce to simmer and reduce by half. This usually takes about 20-30 minutes. As time progresses, you should see the sauce begin to thicken. If it hasn't, no worries, just sprinkle some flour and a half tablespoon of butter and mix. Then let it reduce some more.

Once it's reduced by half, pour the sauce over the fried cutlets. Slice up a lemon and place one slice on each cutlet, then put in the oven for 20-25 minutes. The sauce should thicken even more while it bakes. 

That's the tell-tale sign of a good chicken francese: the sauce. If the sauce is thin and watery, you didn't let it reduce enough. It should be thick, but not gooey. Trust me, it takes some time to perfect the sauce. This was about my 15th time making this dish, and I just began making the sauce correctly. As Vivian always told me, it just takes practice. 

So good luck, happy cooking and bon apetit!