Split Chicken Breasts with Green Peppercorn Sauce

Smashed Chicken with green peppercorn sauce

Breakfast & Brunch, Main Dish Chicken Kitchen

By Chris Capell

This chicken recipe is a little different. Usually boneless chicken pieces are flattened before cooking. But in this recipe we flatten trimmed, bone in, skin on chicken breasts to retain as much flavor in the chicken as possible. We liked the flavor and the way the food presented—each split breast piece covered about 2/3 of dinner plate. The photo below has two portions on one plate.

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Ingredients

For the Chicken:

2 bone in, skin on split chicken breasts
Dizzy Pig® Shakin the Tree seasoning

For the Green Peppercorn Sauce:

2 tsp Olive Oil
1/4 cup low sodium chicken stock
6 cloves roasted garlic
2/3 cup cream
1/4 cup beer (the rest is used to marinate the cook!)
2 tsp brined green peppercorns
1 tsp Dizzy Pig® Shakin the Tree seasoning

Directions

Prepare chicken:

Trim the rib bones from the split breast. These are too small to smash safely and there isn’t any meat on that side of the breast to speak of. You can do this with kitchen shears or a knife, and there is a line of fat along the side that makes it easy to see where to cut or slice.
Take a flat heavy object (NOT textured, it might crack the bones a little too much) and flatten the chicken breasts to about 1/2 inch thick. That includes the bones. Don’t be afraid and do both sides.
Feel around the edges and remove any small pieces of bone that remain.
Completely dry the chicken with paper towels, and season with Dizzy Pig® Shakin’ the Tree rub. We coated the chicken with a thin layer of seasoning, but feel free to use as much or as little as you like.
Heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a large, heavy skillet, cast iron if you have one. When hot, add two pieces of chicken, skin-side down. They will take up the entire pan
After about 4 minutes, or when skin-side is well-browned, flip.
When other side has browned, remove from pan and place onto serving plate. Keep warm.
Cook the two remaining chicken pieces the same way and reserve.
Once all of the chicken is cooked, let it rest skin side up on plate while you make the sauce. It looks good enough to eat just like that! But it’s worth making the sauce too. It’s easy.

Make the sauce:

Deglaze the pan with the chicken stock, scraping the bottom of the pan to get all the good stuff into the sauce.
Add the rest of the ingredients in order, stirring as you go.
Smash the roasted garlic cloves, stir and cook a few minutes until sauce is reduced to the consistency you want, by about 2/3. This won’t take too long, maybe 8 minutes or so.
Pour immediately over the chicken and serve.

In This Recipe: