Frenched Chicken Breast

July 8, 2006 6:50 AM

I have a recipe. It calls for a "frenched chicken breast." Have no ideas what that means. help!

I have a recipe for Grilled Chicken Breasts with Spicy Peach Glaze that calls for 8 "frenched chicken breasts." I've poked around Google and a few cullinary glossarys with no success. Anyone know what they are?

posted by tundro to food & drink (10 comments total)

"To scrape meat and fat from bones of meat, generally associated with lamb chops or veal rib chops"
posted by Alison at 6:51 AM on July 8, 2006

It can also mean "cut into strips", but that use is generally used in conjunction with vegetables. Frenched fries, anyone?
posted by Alison at 6:53 AM on July 8, 2006

Interesting. I've never seen it done to chicken, although it's a very common thing for racks of lamb. Here's how you do it for that.

Here's what you're looking to do for a chicken (check out the second photo).
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 6:59 AM on July 8, 2006

But those are drumsticks, not breasts. Usually Frenching is something you do to a cut of meat that has a long bone sticking out, like chops — or, yeah, drumsticks. I still can't see why you'd do that to a breast, since a bit of spine or ribcage sticking out one end would be horribly unappealing-looking.

(Aw, hell, just slip it the tongue. You know it's what we're all thinking.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 7:20 AM on July 8, 2006 [1 favorite]

FYI a good thing to know, many good/large cookbooks (such as fanny farmer) explain these terms in a section at the back of the book.
posted by tiamat at 7:31 AM on July 8, 2006

It's exactly what you were guessing nebulawindphone. It's the chicken breast with the wing bone still attached but the wing meat and cartilage scraped off.

From a recipe: When preparing chicken breasts, remove the tip and first joint of the wing of each one, leaving the second joint attached to the breast.

Picture 1 2

I can't find any detailed instructions or diagrams for it so I suggest you go to your non-supermarket butcher and ask them to demonstrate for you. I'm guessing it's a rather archaic butchering technique.
posted by junesix at 7:42 AM on July 8, 2006

I assume that the recipe calls for a chicken breast with wings attached. If so, remove the tip and first joint of the wing of each one, leaving the second joint attached to the breast.

A whole chicken breast frenched looks like this.
posted by bCat at 7:43 AM on July 8, 2006

oops... guess I should have reviewed my comment. The link showed the breast as cleaned by the butcher. A (very small) picture of a cooked breast can be seen here.
posted by bCat at 8:07 AM on July 8, 2006

cool... thanks... you guys rock! this was driving me nuts this morning.
posted by tundro at 11:55 AM on July 8, 2006

I think Julia Child give instructions on this technique in her book "The Way to Cook"
posted by Foam Pants at 6:09 PM on July 8, 2006