Chicken Piccata with Roasted Lemon Asparagus
470 cal · 43g protein · 17g carbs · 25g fat
Toddler tip: Slice one cutlet into strips and spoon a little sauce over it — the lemon reads as bright rather than sour once it has butter in it. Hold back a few plain asparagus spears before they get the lemon zest if she prefers them simple, and give her a slice of the sandwich bread, toasted and cut in strips, to mop the sauce with.
Low-carb fork: The dish is already low-carb apart from the flour dredge. Swap the flour for almond flour, or skip the dredge entirely and pat the cutlets dry before searing — you lose a little crust but the pan sauce carries it. Serve with extra asparagus instead of bread.
Ingredients
Chicken
- 2 large (about 1.5 lbs)boneless skinless chicken breasts, halved horizontally into 4 thin cutlets
- ½ cupall-purpose flour, for dredging (save a spoonful — it thickens the sauce later)
- ½ tspkosher salt — deliberately low, because the bouillon broth and the capers both bring salt
- ½ tspblack pepper
- 2 tbspolive oil
Lemon-Caper Pan Sauce
- 1 cupchicken broth, made from bouillon powder at half the usual strength (half the powder you would normally use per cup of water) — the sauce reduces by a third, and the dredge and capers both add more salt
- 3 tbsplemon juice (about 1 large lemon) — 2 tbsp into the sauce, 1 tbsp held back for the finish
- 2 tbspcapers, drained and rinsed
- 2 tbspunsalted butter, cold and cut into cubes
- 2 tbspflat-leaf parsley, chopped
Roasted Lemon Asparagus
- 1.5 lbsasparagus, woody ends snapped off
- 1 tbspolive oil
- 1lemon, zested (save the flesh to juice for the sauce)
- to tastekosher salt and black pepper
Instructions
1Heat the oven to 425°F. Toss the asparagus on your largest sheet pan (a half-sheet, 18×13) with the olive oil, salt, and pepper and spread it in a single layer. A pound and a half is a lot of asparagus — if the spears are stacked on each other, use two pans. Crowded asparagus steams instead of roasting and comes out olive-drab and floppy.
2Stir the flour, salt, and pepper together on a plate. Pat the cutlets dry and press each side into the flour, then shake off everything that is not clinging. A thick flour coat turns gummy in the sauce. Leave the plate of seasoned flour on the counter — you want a spoonful of it later.
3Put the asparagus in the oven for 12-14 minutes. It roasts unattended while you cook the chicken, which keeps the stovetop free for the pan sauce.
4Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high. Sear the cutlets 2-3 minutes on the first side and 1-2 on the second, until deep golden and 160°F in the thickest part — work in two batches so the pan stays hot. A ½-inch cutlet goes from juicy to dry in about a minute, so pull them early. Rest them on a rack, or uncovered on a warm plate. Do not tent them with foil; it steams the crust you just made soft.
5Sprinkle 1 tbsp of the leftover seasoned dredging flour into the pan fat and stir it 30 seconds. Then pour in the broth and 2 tbsp of the lemon juice — hold the last tablespoon back — and scrape the browned bits off the bottom. Simmer 3-4 minutes until it reduces by about a third, then stir in the capers, smashing about half of them against the side of the pan with your spoon so they season the sauce rather than sitting in it as salt pellets.
6Take the skillet off the heat and swirl in the cold butter one cube at a time until the sauce turns glossy. Off the heat matters — boiling after the butter goes in will split it. Stir in the parsley and the reserved 1 tbsp of raw lemon juice. Now taste it, before it goes anywhere near the chicken: with bouillon broth it will most likely need no salt at all, only pepper. If it does taste flat, it is almost always more acid it wants, not more salt.
7When the asparagus comes out, shower it with the lemon zest right away while it is still hot — that is when the zest smells strongest.
8Return the cutlets to the skillet, spoon the sauce over them, and serve alongside the asparagus.