Chiсken Kyiv

This dish is known far beyond the boundaries of Kyiv and still remains a culinary business card of this city. Tourists must order cutlets when arriving in the capital of Ukraine: in the past trying a chicken Kyiv was a mandatory point in all travel programs, along with visiting museums and sightseeing.

There are many versions of the origin of this dish. According to one of them, it was a Kyiv restaurateur who first decorated a chicken meatball with a bone, using butter as filling. Everyone liked the new dish so much that rumours of Kyiv cutlets erupted around the world.

The French, however, try to take credit, believing that this dish was invented and brought to life by the French cook Nicolas Appert, and the name “Kyiv” was established for meatballs after World War II when they had again become popular in the city. French cutlets still exist: if the chicken is filled with butter, then it is a Kyiv-style cutlet, but if the butter is absent or is replaced with sauce, it is the French version.

What in the chicken Kyiv differs from other similar recipes for meatballs? The fact that this cutlet is prepared not from minced meat, but from a chop fillet. It is then wrapped in cold butter so that in the process of cooking the chicken the fillet remains juicy and creamy in taste. Some chefs add cheese, mushrooms, herbs and other seasonings to the filling. It is then breaded in breadcrumbs and deep-fried, leaving it in the shape of an ellipse, with the chicken bone secured to one end.