Chicken Paillard (Butterflied Chicken Breast) with Italian Salsa Verde
I always say that a good test of a restaurant is how good they are at cooking chicken! And this is still true to this very day. Back in the day—by that I mean back in the early aughts—you would see chicken paillard on nearly every restaurant menu. This was a good test for a restaurant: a butterflied chicken breast. You can easily get this really right or really wrong, that is perfectly moist vs bone dry. But this is one of those dishes that's so easy to make at home, that there's no reason to order it—unless your testing the restaurant like I'd do! Butterflying a chicken breast isn't hard at all. It's just a matter of following the anatomy, the contours of the chicken breast. Although many cooks like to pound chicken breast to get it to an even thickness, I prefer butterflying it. There's less of a chance of going too far and completely tearing up the fibers of the meat. Not to mention, the thinner you pound a piece of meat, the higher the chance of it dryin...
