Chicken Francese with Bow-Tie Pasta

Hi my name in Jennifer Chandler and I’m with Cheflive and today, we’re going to be making Chicken Francese. First of all, what I want to do—because I’ve got my chicken here. Now, I went ahead and clean it up. Cleaned up the breast and everything and I pound in some out nice thin scaloppini size and what I want to do to pound that out, you can use a piece of plastic wrap like this, we’re just going to lay it down. You can also use a zip-lock bag, just slide it inside and pound away. Give it some room to move inside there, just put it down just like that and grab our pounder here. The other day I was making it and I’m looking around in my kitchen and I’m like, “I don’t have a mallet or anything to pound with,” so I got a can and I’ve just used the can. So if you don’t have anything, you just slice them and have a nice big size can and I just pound it out and it worked great. So, usually you can find things around the house to use. And then I just went to pound that out. There you go and you can make it as thick or thin as you like, you want to be careful not to make it too thin, or you’ll have like holes in there. Okay, once you have that, you’ll get a nice thinned out chicken breast. Let’s see how it kind of form there, you just kind of shape it up with your knife. Put some nice olive oil on it. And I want a good amount and maybe like a quarter to half a cup just to kind of coat the pan because I’m going to fry the scaloppini but it’s not going to take very long because they are pretty thin. Then, I’ll have my flour and I’m just going to season it up. Go ahead and season everything, little by little and then when it’s done, you don’t have to season it at the table and let’s going to mix it up here. Now, we’re going to do a little different, usually you use your egg and then you flour and then you fry. I’m going to flour, egg, and then try. So, I’m just going to break a couple of eggs in here. Be careful not to get any shells. A good trick, if you do get a shell is you use the shell to get the shell out. I’m just going to beat this up. Now, if you put a little bit of salt in your egg wash, it breaks down the eggs and makes it a little more liquid, plus your seasoning here. Another reason why I’d like to use kosher salt is because it’s not that salty and some times I’m going to salt the flour, salt the eggs and salt the chicken, you know, it’s not as salty as regular table salt. We’re going to add a little water to make it a little thinned egg wash. Now I want to keep an eye on my oil because I don’t want too hot but I do want it hot enough to give it a nice fry. You can usually feel if you do this to get an idea. So, I’ll go ahead and I’m just going to salt these a little just because I have salts everywhere else. I don’t want too salty dish. Put some pepper in there and I got my thin little chicken scaloppini, just dredge it into the flour and then into our egg wash and then just kind of make sure you get all the excess egg off. Now, this is ready here. Once you add it to the pan, you just want to leave t there and let it form a nice little crust. It’s not going to take long to cook these either. While on break, our pasta finished up. I went ahead and took the chicken out of the pan and out in the oven to keep it warm while we make our sauce. I’m going to go ahead and strain this pasta here. Now, since I have this hot pasta and my sauce isn’t ready, you know, I’m not ready for the pasta yet. I don’t want it to just sit here because what happens is it’s going to stick together. So, I’m just going to go ahead and put in some olive oil and it’s good for the flavor too. We’re going to make a nice light sauce both for the chicken and the pasta and we’re just going to go ahead and toss that together. This will keep it from sticking and it will give a nice flavor. I’ll season this up with salt and pepper. Then you can just kind of toss it around. We’re also going to add some of the parley we have, some nice fresh crisp parsley, nice flavor to it. If you want, you can add some garlic, whatever it is you choose. I’m going to also put a little bit more in my sauce, so I’ll just leave that here. I’ve got the pan that has a little bit of the oil left from the chicken and all the flavoring from where we breaded it. What I want to do is I’m going to add, I’m going to go ahead and grab some butter, I’ve got some nice soft butter here and I’m just going to dip it in this flour and it’s going to help my sauce thicken with the flour and I’m going to let that melt in there. I have a little whisk here. Then I got chicken broth, go ahead and pour that in there. I’ll add it nice and slow because I’ve got a hot pan. See how it’s turning brown, that’s from all the nice juices from the chicken, the flavoring that left behind. I have two cups here, so I’m making enough, not only to sauce the chicken but also to maybe put into our pasta, so I’m going to add a little bit more and it’s going to reduce down into nice thicker sauce as well, so I’m going to go ahead and add about a cup of it. Okay, in here, I have lemon juice and I’ve got half a cup of lemon juice. And this is going to be a nice lemony sauce. And then I’ll also have some white wine and I’m just going to turn that up and let that come down and we’ll see it turn into a nice sauce. And if you notice, you wanted to get it a little thicker, you can always use more flour, just kind of sprinkle it in there real slow, in that way, there is no lumps, add some more of that to our pasta. It will take this long to thicken up. I wanted to put some salt on that. This is why mom never gets to eat dinner, she’s full by the time she gets this nibbling—making sure everything is perfect. Pull out my chicken because my sauce is just about ready. Now, if there are a couple little chunks in there from where your chicken was breaded and kind of fell off, it’s okay. And now my sauce is as thick as I want it, but for the finish product, I want to go ahead and dip my chicken in there to get that kind of coat the flavoring, I don’t want to leave it in there too long because I don’t want it to get too soft, I just want it to take on that flavor. Then I’ll go ahead and use this. And this is the funniest part, it’s to decorate the plate, you know presentation is everything, you can get something that doesn’t taste very good but it looks so nicely, “Wow, this is so nice.” And they’re tasting it like, “I think, it’s still nice.” I’m going to turn that off. Nice piece right here, still one more. There you go. Sprinkle on some parsley, then I want to spoon on some of that sauce, see how it got nice and thick? There you go, there’s our Chicken Francese.