Modern British · Main
Butter Chicken
The retro dinner-party bomb, rebuilt properly — a sealed pocket of wild-garlic butter that gushes on first cut, in a double panko shell
- Prep
- 40 min
- Cook
- 25 min
- Serves
- 4
Ingredients
- Chicken breasts, skin off — 4 x 200 g
- Unsalted butter — 150 g, softened
- Wild garlic — 30 g, finely chopped (or 15 g parsley + 2 garlic cloves)
- Lemon — 1, zested
- Fine sea salt — 7 g; black pepper — 2 g
- Plain flour — 80 g
- Free-range eggs — 3, beaten
- Panko breadcrumbs — 180 g
- Neutral oil — 1.5 L, for frying
- Lemon wedges — to serve
- Watercress — 60 g
Method
- Beat butter with wild garlic, lemon zest, 2 g salt; roll into 4 x 35 g cylinders in cling film; freeze 30 minutes until hard.
- Cut a deep horizontal pocket into the thick side of each breast; insert a butter cylinder and press the flesh sealed. Season.
- Pané: flour, egg, panko — then egg and panko a second time, pinching the seam closed with crumbs. Chill 30 minutes (critical).
- Heat oil to 170°C and oven to 180°C.
- Fry Kievs 4 minutes, turning, until golden all over.
- Transfer to a rack; bake 10–12 minutes to a core of 70°C beside the butter pocket.
- Rest 3 minutes — but serve fast; the pressure inside is the point.