Chicken Breasts With Lemon

This looks really good, but I'm confused about something. After you brown the chicken on both sides, you discard the oil, add the broth, etc., how long do you continue to cook the chicken? It would have to be at least half an hour. I want to cook this. Any advice?

I like to brown the chicken and then remove from the pan. Pour off any excess oil and then cook the shallot and garlic and thyme leaves briefly and then add the liquid (wine, chicken broth) along with the lemon zest and juice. After it simmers for a few minutes to thicken a little add the butter to the sauce and return chicken to pan to finish cooking (five minutes)

Chris - I cooked as indicated, 5 mins one side (Step 2), flipped and cooked another 5 mins (Step 3), cooked another minute with thyme, shallots and garlic (Step 4) and finally an additional 3 mins (Step 5). Came out perfect!

1) Remove the chicken before making the sauce.
2) Do not wipe out the pan. Alex is right, that would also remove the fond. Pour off the excess oil. You need a thin film of the oil left in the pan to sauté the shallot & garlic.
3) The butter is added after reducing the liquid so it will emulsify and thicken the sauce. If you add it before you will get a greasy broken sauce. Add the butter, whisk it in then add the chicken to the sauce and you're finished.

Kevin O’Sullivan, I just read this recipe today and saw your question about lemon zest remained unanswered. Lemon zest is the yellow part of a lemon’s skin. The white part of the skin under the zest is called the pith and has an undesirable chalky taste. To remove zest but not pith from a lemon requires a light hand. Use an extremely sharp and small paring knife with slight pressure to shave off only the yellow. Or a micro-hole grater with light pressure to scrape at the skin. Hope this helps.

What exactly is 'lemon zest' please? Is it lemon skin, or the juice that can be squeezed out of lemon skin, or...?

Kevin (Somerset, England)

Would probably be good to cut the chicken breast longways in half.

Loved the recipe. I used a full cup of chicken broth to make more sauce. I also used dill (b/c that is all that I had) and it tasted great. I added artichoke hearts and capers. Yum!

This looks great. Why would you not remove the chicken to a platter,wipe out the oil and add the butter, stock and aromatics while the chicken keeps warm...wouldn't this insure a nice brown crust and lovely sauce?

I really miss Pierre Franey. What a touch. Recipe was simple, fast and delicious.

brown the chicken remove from the pan. Pour off excess oil cook shallot, garlic, thyme leaves briefly add liquid (wine, chicken broth) lemon zest and juice, simmers to thicken add the butter return chicken to pan to finish cooking (five minutes)
modify to coat chicken with breadcrumbs
made this with fish fillets - it was delicious. cooked the fish (rock cod fillets for 3 minutes per side; skipped the broth; otherwise everything was the same. This recipe lends itself well to milder fish.

Fast & easy to prepare. I used white wine instead of the broth since I had some handy & it worked fine. Nice moist chicken.

This has been consistently delicious--though you can easily make do with less than half a cup of flour, and less butter, as well. The garlic and shallots do tend to burn (in well under a minute) when they're added to a pan that hot (that's been drained of oil).

I used thinly sliced boneless skinless chicken breasts and 5 minutes on each side resulted in perfect chicken. Any longer than the directions and the chicken would be too dry.

It is so nice to see a Pierre Franey recipe - more, please.