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Trying out a new recipe plugin, let me know what you think! The obligatory fictional backstory still follows the recipe.
Country Style Chicken Kiev
Ingredients
- 10 Tablespoons butter unsalted
- ½ cup bread crumbs
- 1 Tablespoon basil dried
- 1 Tablespoon oregano dried
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- 6 small boneless, skinless chicken breast
- ¼ cup apple juice
- 2 Tablespoons chives dried
- 1 Tablespoon parsley dried
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 °F.
- Melt butter in a small saucepan, then remove from heat.
- On a plate or in a broad, flat bowl, mix bread crumbs, basil, oregano, salt and garlic powder.
- Dip chicken breasts in butter then coat in the bread crumb mixture. Arrange chicken in a ceramic baking dish (you can use a metal pan but I prefer ceramic for this recipe).
- Bake for 25 minutes. In the meantime, add the apple juice, chives and parsley to the remaining butter and cook over low heat until butter is re-melted.
- Pour sauce over the chicken and bake for an additional 10 minutes or until chicken reaches an internal temperature of 165 °F.
Obligatory Fictional Backstory
Who would have known that having a Russian prince over for Easter dinner would cost me my duchy?
Let me back up.
My daughter had been courted by Prince Vsevolod II for nearly six months now. He was head over heels for her, but he had hardly spent any time with the rest of the family. We had seen each other in passing, of course, but never for an extended sit-down dinner.
Knowing that the prince’s favorite dish was Chicken Kiev, I tasked the servants with creating a version of it that would be like nothing he had ever eaten before – in a good way, of course. The servants did not disappoint, and came up with this buttery, slightly sweet version of Chicken Kiev that made everyone’s taste buds dance!
Sadly, I was unaware that the cook had a vendetta against both my family and the royal family, and their version also contained large quantities of arsenic, which I mistook for garlic. Luckily for me I had been slowly building a tolerance to arsenic, but unfortunately the prince had not and did not survive the meal.
I was forced to seek asylum in Norway and lost my duchy, but at least I managed to grab the Chicken Kiev recipe before I fled. I replaced the arsenic with garlic powder, which keeps the benefit of the flavor without the unpleasant side effects.
Real Talk
So in my family, we jokingly refer to this as “Chicken Kid”. Reason being, when my brother-in-law was about 4 years old, he asked my mother-in-law what was for dinner and she said “Chicken Kiev”. He heard her say “Chicken Kid” and ran away crying and screaming “DON’T COOK ME, MOM!!!”
I actually adapted this recipe from an old cookbook that my mom has, though; my mother-in-law uses a different recipe with shrimp. This is our semi-traditional Easter dinner (lasagna for Christmas, chicken kiev for Easter) so I figured it would be a good time to share it with all of you!
We like it served with egg noodles or bow tie noodles. If you’re concerned about using the butter after dipping the chicken (I’m not since it gets heated completely afterwards) you can put a small amount of the melted butter into a separate dish for the chicken and keep the rest back for the sauce.
For some reason, this just cooks better in a ceramic dish than a metal one. I like my Corningware for this – plus, it looks nice enough to take it straight to the table to serve from!
If you liked Country Style Chicken Kiev, you’ll love Italian Dipping Sauce Chicken!
