Chicken Kiev

Chicken Kiev, also known aschicken Kyivandchicken à la Kyiv,is a dish made ofchickenfilletpounded and rolled around cold butter, then coated with egg andbread crumbs, and eitherfriedorbaked.Since fillets are often referred to assuprêmesin professional cookery,the dish is also called "suprême de volaille à la Kiev".Stuffed chicken breast is generally known inRussianandUkrainiancuisines ascôtelette de volaille.Though it has disputed origins, the dish is particularly popular in thepost-Soviet states, as well as in several other countries of the formerEastern Bloc,and in theEnglish-speaking world.
The history of this dish is not well documented, and various sources make claims about its origin. Since the 18th century, Russian chefs have adopted many techniques of Frenchhaute cuisineand combined them with the local culinary tradition. The adoption was furthered by the French chefs, such asMarie-Antoine CarêmeandUrbain Dubois, who were hired by Russian gentry. In particular, the use of high quality meat cuts, such as various cutlets, steaks, escalopes and suprêmes became widespread in the 19th century, and a number of original dishes involving such components were developed in Russia at that time.
The French termde volaillemeans "of poultry" and denotes almost exclusively chicken dishes in French cookbooks.The namecôtelette de volaillemeans thus simply "chicken cutlet". Despite the original French name, the Russian recipe is unknown inFrench cuisine, where the termcôtelette de volaillerefers to chicken breasts in generaland is used nearly synonymously with chickenfiletorsuprême.The French term also denotes a minced chicken cutlet-shapedpatty.The general Russian term for chicken cutlets,kurinaya kotleta(куриная котлета), refers predominantly to such minced cutlets, whereaskotleta de-voliay(котлета деволяй) is applied exclusively to the stuffed chicken breast dish. The latter name appears in the pre- and post-revolutionaryRussian literature (in cookbooks as well as in fiction) since the beginning of the 20th century and is usually mentioned as a common restaurant dish.
The recipe in the classical Russian cookery textbookThe Practical Fundamentals of the Cookery ArtbyPelageya Alexandrova-Ignatieva[ru](which had eleven editions between 1899 and 1916) includes a complex stuffing similar toquenelle(a mixture of minced meat, in this case the rest of the meat of the chicken, and cream) but with butter added. It also points out that "the cutletsde volailleare made from whole chicken fillets, like thegamecutletsà la Maréchale".The recipe is preceded by a similar one for "hazel grousecutletsà la Maréchale" with a quenelle andtrufflestuffing.Another Russian cookbook published at the same time gives basically identical recipes forcôtelette de volailleandcôtelette à la Maréchaleand notes that the only difference between them is that the former are made of chicken while the latter are made of game, such as hazel grouse,blackcock, etc.
The termà la Maréchale("marshal-style") denotes in French cookery tender pieces of meat, such as cutlets,escalopes,sweetbreads, or chicken breasts, which are treatedà l'anglaise("English-style"), i.e. coated with egg and breadcrumbs, andsautéed.Numerous recipes of such dishes, some of them with stuffings, are described in both Western and Russian cookbooks of the 19th century. Among the stuffed versions, one finds a recipe for a "fowl filletà la Maréchale" stuffed with truffles and herbs inThe Art of French Cuisine of the 19th Century(1847) byMarie-Antoine Carême,and a similarfilet de poulets à la Maréchalewith herbs andforcemeatinLa cuisine classique(1868) byUrbain Dubois.Elena Molokhovets'A Gift to Young Housewives, the most successful Russian cookbook of the 19th century, has included since its first edition in 1861 an elaborate recipe for "hazel grouseà la Maréchale" stuffed withMadeira sauce,portobello mushroomsandtruffles.
The main difference between the old timecôtelette de volailleand the modern chicken Kiev is that the elaborate stuffings of the former are replaced by butter.The use of butter for chicken cutlets has been known in Russian cuisine at least since the invention of thePozharsky cutletin the first half of the 19th century. The Pozharsky cutlets are breaded ground chicken patties for which butter is added to minced meat. This results in an especially juicy and tender consistency. The dish was a widely appraised invention of 19th-century Russian cuisine, which was also adopted by Frenchhaute cuisineand subsequently by theinternational cuisine.
While the roots of chicken Kiev can thus be traced back to Frenchhaute cuisineand Russian cookery of the 19th century, the origin of the particular recipe known today as chicken Kiev remains disputed.
TheRussian Tea RoomCookbooknotes that chicken Kiev was "most likely ... a creation of the great French chef Carême at the Court ofAlexander I."Marie-Antoine Carêmespent just several months of the year 1818 inSt. Petersburg,but made a profound impact on Russian cuisine in this short time.The reforms carried out by his followers introduced in particular various meat cuts into Russian cookery.The recipe of the Russiancôtelette de volailleis not present in Carême's major work mentioned above, but his "fowl filletà la Maréchale" could have served as the starting point for the further development of such dishes.
Some Russian sources attribute the creation of this dish (or of its precursor) toNicolas Appert, French confectioner and chef, best known as the inventor of airtightfood preservation. In contrast, common biographic sources for Appert do not mention this dish, and the origin of these claims is unclear.
Russian food historianWilliam Pokhlyobkinclaimed that chicken Kiev was invented in 1912 asNovo-Mikhailovskaya kotletain а St. Petersburg Merchants' Club located near theMikhailovsky palace, and was renamedkotleta po-kiyevskiin 1947 by a Soviet restaurant.However, these claims collide with primary sources. The cookbook by Alexandrova-Ignatieva (including editions before and after 1912) describes indeed Novo-Mikhailovsky cutlets and mentions that they were invented in the club near the Mikhailovsky palace. However, in the provided recipe these cutlets are made from minced meat similarly to the Pozharsky cutlet, with the only difference being the meat pounded by atenderizeruntil it gets minced. This allows one to removetendonsfrom the meat and results in a more tender consistency of the ground meat than after the use of agrinder. The author also remarks that not only breasts but also other parts of chicken can be prepared this way and added to the mixture of meat and butter.
The second claim of Pokhlyobkin's version is invalidated, as the references of chicken Kiev appeared in published sources much earlier, since the 1910s.
Oral tradition inKyivattributes the invention of the "cutletde volailleKiev-style" (kotłeta de-voljaj po-kyjivśky) to the restaurant of the Continental hotel in Kyiv in the beginning of the 20th century.A luxury hotel built in 1897 in the center of Kyiv, it was run until the Nazi German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. The building was then mined by the retreatingRed Armyand exploded when theGerman Armyoccupied Kyivin September 1941.After the war, the building was rebuilt and has since then been used by theKyiv Conservatory. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Chicken Kiev was thesignature dishof the hotel's restaurant.
An early reference of "Kiev cutlets from chicken or veal" is found in theCookery Digest(1915), a collection of recipes which were published in the MoscowJournal for Housewivesin 1913–1914. These were minced meat cutlets similar to the Pozharsky cutlets, but shaped like a croquette with a bar of cold butter placed in the middle. Like modern chicken Kiev, the croquettes were covered with egg and breadcrumbs and fried.
Later, "chicken cutlets Kiev-style" were listed inApportionments for dinners, separate dishes and other products of public catering(1928) which served as a standard reference for Soviet catering establishments. The book also included other items for chicken cutlets, such as "cutletde volaille" and "cutletà la Maréchale". The book demanded renaming of many traditional restaurant dishes to replace the (mostly French-style) "bourgeois" names with simple "proletarian" forms. In particular, the "cutlet Kiev-style" had to be renamed into "chicken cutlet stuffed with butter".This program was not realised immediately (at least not completely), and its successor,The Directory of Apportionments for Catering(1940), published by the Soviet Ministry of Food Industry, still included the traditional names.In post-World War II publications of this directory and in other Soviet cookery books, such asCookery(1955), the "Kiev-style" name was retained, but the termsde volailleandà la Maréchalewere indeed dropped in favour of simple names such as "chicken cutlet stuffed with milk sauce", "chicken cutlet stuffed with liver" and "chicken cutlet stuffed with chickenquenelleand mushrooms".As a result of this policy, the namesde volailleandà la Maréchaledisappeared from menus of Soviet restaurants.
The "old-style" name "cutletde volailleKiev-style" was occasionally mentioned in some post-World War II Soviet fiction books.In particular, in a short storyThis Is Not Written In A Cookbook(1947) by Yevgeny Vorobyov, a Soviet soldier and a former chef in a Moscow noble hotel explains to his comrade in arms, that "cutletsde volailleare made for two tastes. There are cutletsde volailleKiev-style and cutletsde volaillejardiniere."
The namekotlet de volailleis used to this day for chicken Kiev in Poland.The name is oftentimes polonised asdewolaj(dewolajefor plural).
Mentions of chicken Kiev are also found in US newspapers starting from 1937. The reports describe the Russian-style restaurant Yar in Chicago serving this dish.The restaurant existed until 1951 and was run by Vladimir Yaschenko, a former colonel of the imperial Russian army. It was styled after the famouseponymous Moscow restaurantand was frequented by celebrities of that time.After World War II, US newspapers mentioned chicken Kiev served in New York restaurants.Recipes for a "chicken cutlet à la Kiev" were published inThe New York Timesin 1946and inGourmetmagazine in 1948.
Since the end of the 1940s or beginning of the 1950s, chicken Kiev became a standard fare in Soviet high class restaurants, in particular in theIntouristhotel chain serving foreign tourists. Tourist booklets warned the diners of the danger it presented to their clothing.At the same time the popularity of this dish grew in the US. According toDarra Goldsteinchicken Kiev became "a symbol of Russianhaute cuisine".
In response to the2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, supermarket chains in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada rebranded their versions of the dish to "chicken Kyiv" (in line withthe general media shiftfrom the Russian-derived name "Kiev" to "Kyiv") to show respect and support for Ukraine and Ukrainians.
Chicken Kiev is made from a boned and skinned breast which is cut lengthwise, pounded and stuffed with butter. Western recipes usually call for garlic butter, while in Russian ones regular butter is used. Herbs (parsley and dill) can be added to the butter.In some American recipes butter is replaced by blue cheese.
In the classical preparation of Frenchcôtelettes de volaille, thehumerusbone of the wing is left attached.This also holds for their Russian versionsand in particular for chicken Kiev.For serving, the bone is usually covered with a frilled paper napkin.However, industrially produced pure fillets are often used nowadays, and the cutlets are served without the bone. This is the usual way of serving chicken Kiev in the US.A spherically shaped version was developed by English chefJesse Dunford Wood.
In the middle of the 20th century,semi-processedground meat cutlets were introduced in the USSR. Colloquially known asMikoyan cutlets(named after Soviet politicianAnastas Mikoyan), these were cheap pork or beef cutlet-shaped patties which resembled industrially produced American beef burgers.Some varieties bore names of well known Russian restaurant dishes but they had little in common with the original dishes. In particular, a variety of a pork patty was called "Kiev-style cutlet".Since the late Soviet times, "real" chicken Kiev cutlets have been offered in Russia asconvenience food.
Introduced in Britain during 1979, chicken Kiev wasMarks & Spencercompany's firstready-made meal.It remains popular in the UK, being readily available in supermarkets and served in some restaurant chains. Due to its popularity, it is included in the UK inflation basket which is composed by theOffice for National Statisticsfor calculations of the consumer price inflation indices.The wide popularity of chicken Kiev as a pre-packaged meal led to the termKievbeing applied to various stuffed chicken dishes, such as "leek-and-bacon Kiev", "cheese-and-ham Kiev" (the same dish aschickencordon bleu), and "vegetarian Kiev" (made frombeans).
Among other dishes similar to chicken Kiev, the aforementioned chickencordon bleuwith a cheese and ham filling instead of butter is particularly popular in theWest. The recipe ofKarađorđeva šnicla, aSerbianbreaded veal or pork cutlet, was inspired by chicken Kiev.
"'Chicken Kiev' speech" is the derisive name coined byWilliam Safirefor then-U.S. PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush's speech in Kyiv on 1 August 1991, which opposed independence forUkraine, cautioning Ukrainians against "suicidalnationalism".Bush did what he could diplomatically to keep the Soviet Union together, but on 24 August Ukrainedeclared independence, and on 1 December Ukrainians voted for it in anational referendum, leading to theUSSR's dissolutionby December 26.
In 2018, a bronze miniature sculpture of chicken Kiev was placed on Horodecki street in Kyiv, near the restaurant "Chicken Kyiv". The sculpture became the first of a set of such mini-sculptures depicting famous symbols of Kyiv placed throughout the city as part of an art project.