Piccata - How I Brought Jared Away From The Dark Side

When I moved to Atlanta and married Sally, she had been a working single mom for a couple years. Jared was 6 and Kristin was 10. That's a difficult situation because there are not enough hours in the day to do what needs to be done. So her cooking of dinner was motivated by speed. She fixed nutritious meals but they focused on quickness. A lot had to be squeezed into a short amount of time, homework, dinner, baths, next day clothes selection, bedtime stories, etc. You get the idea. Raising children is not for the faint of heart.

At that time, I was starting in the wine business. I had been a restaurateur and chef for a number of years prior to that. I helped with the cooking. One of the first meals I fixed was a grilled marinated breast of chicken. I executed what I considered professional grill marks.

        

Jared took one look and wanted to know: "Who burned my chicken?" He was accustomed to his mother's cooking of chicken breasts. There are no grill marks on microwaved chicken breasts. 

I consider frozen, canned and ultra processed food and the microwave oven people cook them in, the dark side of cooking. The sweet taste of a ripe tomato with the juice dripping down your arm, or a tree ripened peach in its delicious splendor, eating all fruits and vegetables in their season not crossbred rocks designed to travel, seafood right off the boat, lamb in the spring; these are the Light.  And according to Yoda, "If once you start down the Dark Path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will...". I could see I was going to have to take a different path to save Jared from the Dark Side.

I noticed that Jared ate lemons for a snack like most people eat oranges, cut into wedges. Sally and I wondered why this didn't eat through the enamel on his teeth. His dentist assured us as long as he brushed his teeth on a regular basis this wouldn't be a problem. 

Therefore, the next time I fixed chicken breasts, I made Chicken Piccata. I had been making it for years in my restaurants. I pounded the breast into a thin uniform shape, dusted it with flour, sauteed it in olive oil, deglazed the pan with white wine and lemon juice, added capers (another lemon tasting component) and lemon slices, reduced the sauce, seasoned it and finished it with unsalted butter. I called it Chicken Piccata. Jared called it Lemon Chicken. It became a favorite of his. 

With the name piccata, most people assume that this dish came from Italy. In all my travels to Italy with Winebow and Sally, I never saw this on any menu. With a little research, I found that piccata originated in the 1930's with Italian-American immigrants in the United States. It was a dish made with veal scallopini rather than chicken breast because, at the time, veal was less expensive than chicken breasts. Imagine that!

My first exposure to piccata was the veal variety at the Golden Pheasant Inn in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. My buddy Rat and I had spent the winter ski-bumming in Vermont and had the opportunity to work the summer at the inn before returning to Vermont the next winter. The inn was a bit out in the country on the Delaware River separating Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Because housing was a problem, we were given room and board in addition to the tips we earned as waiters. I don't recall be paid any wage. I'm pretty sure we never showed up on the books for this establishment. This was back in the day when we were young and foolish and never worried about the future. The IRS never knew about our tips, because we never declared any ie. no taxes were paid. The tips were quite substantial because this was an expensive restaurant and inn. You could never do this today but back then it was quite normal. 

 The owners of the inn were quite generous with us. It was hard finding qualified help out in the country. The menu consisted of a lot of tableside preparations ie. Steak Diane, Bananas Lady Duncan and Cafe Diablo. 

Our rooms were very nice and on the third floor. The restaurant and bar were on the first floor and the guest rooms on the second. Our board consisted of a dinner meal off the menu and no tab at the bar. After a while, the owners came to an understanding of the massive quantities of alcoholic beverages we could consume but we still never had a tab. When we had friends visit, they also never had a tab. The owners had an apartment in New York City that we could use as well. We took advantage of that on our days off. We loved New York. 

Veal Piccata was on the menu and Rat had it every night for a month. I tried everything on the menu, so I could better describe them to our guest. Rat really liked the Veal Piccata. I'm surprised he didn't call it Lemon Veal. 

I have since brought Jared away from the Dark Side with several other dishes including Crab Cakes, Caesar Salad and Shrimp and Grits. He still has one Dark Side favorite, canned jellied cranberry sauce, Ocean Spray in particular. He eats multiple cans at a seating. I think everyone surrenders to the temptations of the Dark Side, every now and then. I go over for the Jelly Belly variety of jelly beans, especially the black licorice ones. Yoda would understand.

Chicken Piccata                  

½ - Cup Olive Oil                                                ¼ - Lb. Unsalted Butter
4 - 8 Oz. Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast     1- Cup Dry White Wine
2 - Tbsp. Fresh Lemon Juice                             1- Tsp. Non-Pareil Capers
1 - Cup All-Purpose Flour                                   Salt and Pepper to Taste
Lemon Slices                                                     Flat Leaf Parsley

Take the chicken breasts and pound out to ½ inch scallops.  Dredge in flour and in a large skillet, over medium heat, sauté in oil until golden brown. 

Remove the chicken to a plate and drain on paper towels. Put in a warm oven to hold. 

Pour off most of the oil, reserving about a tablespoon. Add about a teaspoon of flour to the oil and mix well making a roux. Deglaze the pan with the white wine, scraping up the brown bits on the bottom of the skillet. Add lemon juice and reduce. Add capers and salt and pepper to taste.  Mount butter at the end to thicken sauce. Taste and correct seasoning. Arrange chicken breasts on plates and top with sauce. Garnish with lemon slices and chopped parsley.