Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation Chicken Francese

With capers and artichoke hearts. Made it for dinner tonight. An old favorite of mine. I make it pretty regularly. It's in my rotation.



First I make the chicken, and I always use boneless, skinless, chicken thighs. I hammer them flat, then dredge them in all-purpose flour, then dip them into a mixture of eggs and milk (3 eggs, and about a half cup of milk), then into a hot oiled pan (I use EVOO) that's set to medium high till browned on both sides (about 3 minutes on each side). After each batch is done, I set them aside in a covered dish. When all are done and set aside and covered, I make the sauce.

Put a stick of butter in a sauce pan and melt it. Squeeze a lemon's juice (sliced into quarters, with seeds removed) into the butter. Then add the squeezed lemon quarters, and allow to cook for three minutes. Then add a can of condensed Campbell's chicken broth, and a cup of white wine. Bring back to boil, then add a small jar full of marinated artichoke hearts (exclude the marinade liquid) along with a tablespoon full of capers. Reduce for five or ten minutes, then take it off the heat and allow boiling to completely stop. Remove and dispose of the lemon quarters

Now, in a cup, add a heaping teaspoon full of either arrowroot or corn starch to a quarter cup of cold water or cold white wine and mix with a spoon. Add mixture to sauce and stir. Put the sauce back on the stove and bring to a boil for a few minutes. If too thick, add some water while stirring till your preferred consistency is reached. Check for salt and adjust as needed.

Now cover the bottom of a large skillet with the sauce, and layer the chicken on it. Spoon another layer of the sauce over that, and add another layer of chicken, and so on till all the chicken is in the skillet, then pour the remaining sauce on top, and cover. Bring to a low boil for three or four minutes, then serve.

Looks great!

It's delicious.

It's funny, because things cooked Francese (fish, veal, chicken, shrimp, whatever) in the US have been presented to the public as Northern Italian cuisine all my life, and have been featured in Italian American restaurants as such all that time. So, when I visited Italy, there was a restaurateur standing in front of his restaurant trying to convince customers to come in and dine (a common practice in Italy, and also in Little Italy, NYC), I asked if he made Vitello Francese (veal Francese), and he said "Yes, I can make anything Francese. In fact," he assured me, "I even studied to be a chef in France."

That was my first exposure to the fact that Francese simply means cooked in the style of the French. I had always thought it was just the name of an Italian dish. This guy must have thought it odd that, here I was in Italy, in front of an Italian restaurant, asking whether I can have something cooked French style.

PS I’ve made it with flattened pork loin as well. Also good.

TRH, I've heard of it, but never eaten it.

Reads & looks delicious.

Looks and sounds good. Close to a piccata.

It’s hard to go wrong with about any pan fried chicken cutlet and a pan sauce to go with.

Looks good.

Yeah, similar. I think the only difference is the egg batter.