Chicken Kyiv (Herb Butter Wrapped in Crumbed Chicken) 🍗

Name: Chicken Kyiv (Herb Butter Wrapped in Crumbed Chicken)
Prep time: 48 min
Cook time: 72 min
Total time: 120 min
Yield: 2-4 servings
Cuisine: Ukrainian
Ingredients: Butter core: 150 g butter softened, handful flat-leaf parsley chopped, 1 garlic clove grated, lemon zest, salt & white pepper; 4 chicken fillets (breast), pounded thin, or boned skinless thighs flattened; Coating: flour; 2 beaten eggs; fine dry breadcrumbs (day-old, blitzed); neutral oil for deep frying 3 cm at 170 °C; Extras: thin mushroom duxelles spread is the classic upgrade — 200 g mushrooms chopped dry-fried + 1 shallot; To serve: lemon wedges on a cocktail fork stuck in one end, dill, mashed potatoes

The trick is structural engineering: a frozen cigar of parsley-and-garlic butter, wrapped raw in a doubled crust of chicken and crumb, so that when it fries the butter inside melts into a sauce that erupts the moment you cut — the fork equivalent of a jump scare. Named for Kyiv and claimed by three cuisines at once (Imperial Russian, French via the Antonin Carême lineage, Soviet via the Moscow 'New Russian' restaurants of 1947), it is today Ukraine's most famous export plate and a Kyiv restaurant staple, served with the spine of lemon and a sprig of dill as the only garnish that matters.

Kyiv Oblast Ukrainian ⏱ 120 min Hard

Method

1

Beat the butter with herbs, garlic and zest; pipe or roll into 4 finger-sized logs and freeze solid — at least 2 hours. This step is the dish.
2

Pound each cutlet to a 2 mm rectangle bigger than a butter log; lay on cling film. Spread thin mushroom duxelles if using, season, and place a frozen log off-centre.
3

Roll the chicken around the butter like a cigarette, keeping it cold; twist the film and chill 20 min. Any seam gap = butter tsunami in the fryer.
4

Coat flour → egg → crumbs → egg → crumbs, a double armor so the seam is locked. Chill again 15 min; fry 170 °C, 6–7 minutes, turning, to a deep even gold and 74 °C at the thickest.
5

Rest 3 minutes only — any longer and the sauce solidifies. Present with a lemon-piercing pick, warn the table before cutting, and serve with mashed potato to catch the butter river.

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Chicken Kyiv (Herb Butter Wrapped in Crumbed Chicken) 🍗

Method

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