How to Make Updated Italian Classics Like Chicken Piccata and Chocolate Semifreddo

Cook #withme #stayhome Test cook Keith Dresser makes Bridget an updated recipe for an Italian staple: Chicken Piccata. Then, science expert Dan Souza explains the science behind fat and temperature perception. Finally, Bridget and Julia unlock the secrets to making the ultimate Chocolate Semifreddo.
Get the recipe for Chicken Piccata: cooks.io/2xisYFO
Get the recipe for Chocolate Semifreddo: cooks.io/2UuSYFL
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[@lisaomay]

I've been making Piccata for 50 years and didnt think I could improve on it. All the same ingredients but using the cut up lemon slices and salt marinating the chicken were game changers. 5 Star Recipe!

[@b_l_w]

Can I make a suggestion? For the chicken piccata, I recommend slicing the lemon into thin wheels, which makes it easy to remove the seeds with the point of your knife. A bit time consuming, but those seeds can impart an awful bitterness. Well worth the 45 seconds!

[@brendafain9962]

@Bo Lewis. Thank you Bo. I love the suggestion. I am an unselfish vegetarian, and I am always looking for great recipes for my family, so I will give this a try, and slice the lemon as you suggested. God bless. 😘

[@maximobriggs8499]

Instablaster.

[@hungsu9204]

I like Keith leaving the lemons in the sauce.

[@philmichael143]

I love how long ATK has been in my life. I trained in a kitchen with a family, of 65, 45, and 30 year old chefs, at a young age in my teens. I dearly miss those days. A little direction goes a long way and there is no shortage of info here. The internet is making it easy to catch up instead of waiting to catch an episode on TV. Thanks again and always.

[@j46088]

Please thank Dan for sacrificing his hands for science

[@puchunful]

I made the chicken picata tonight for dinner and it was DELISH!! The lemons cooked down enough that you don't even taste the bitterness from the pith. Served it with angel hair pasta that I tossed with whatever sauce was left in the pan and topped that off with a sprinkling of parm and more parsley. Definitely will make again!

[@ChatBot1337]

Mmm chicken piccata. I always keep diced chicken thighs in the freezer, 2 to a freezer bag squished flat wih a dash of soy sauce as they defrost in 30 mins on the counter. Coat with a little corn starch and start frying. Once browned, add a few cups of shredded cabbage, add garlic, white wine (Beringer chardonnay is the best ive found so far), lemon juice, and capers. Let it steam the cabbage a bit and it's ready. Its a stir fryish take which came from my orange chicken which is done the same way but with orange sauce versus piccata flavors. As always, love the channel. 😚

[@cbboucher]

I want to see Keith on the Men of America's Test Kitchen calendar.

[@soupdancer17]

cbboucher I think she got lost in his eyes for a second

[@brendafain9962]

I guess I need to watch the video again. I don't see it. However, I do wear glasses. 😁

[@cynthiaamitrano8915]

Oh yes, I will be making this chicken piccata very soon soon. Semifreddo looks wonderful as well. Both very easy recipes. Thank you.

[@ludovicavalfredibonzo2683]

Wel done! I want to try these. Love your show.

[@Passionforfoodrecipes]

It's true what they say, the classics never die!

[@hollym5873]

Love the recipes and always love the educational segment.

[@lisayerace5578]

Man.... that Piccata looks FABULOUS!

[@christinemadrazo6755]

Great Piccata recipe. Thanks for sharing this.

[@blbtx45]

I love this cooking class; thank you 🙏 😊

[@bobbilaird4481]

Geez!!! Hello chef McDreamy!! I had to watch this twice cause I had no idea what was said the first time. More of him!! I’ll watch. 😍

[@brendafain9962]

@Bobbi Laird. You are funny. 😁

[@ChatBot1337]

Paula Deen is drooling looking at that barrel of butter. 😆

[@rebeccaschadt7136]

The picatta and semifreddo look to die for!!!

[@heavyforward]

You just know that some Italian watched this and went completely bonkers. "She did what with the cutlets!? She put them back in the sauce!?!"

[@jusssayin480]

If they're that fussy they shouldn't be watching this and they should already know how to make it.

[@joeymama4666]

It doesn't take much effort to make Italians go completely bonkers

[@griviljava]

What a beautiful chicken recipe. & love the way cut those cutlets :D

[@elizabethdiblasio7825]

Love you guys! Every that you prepare is yummy!!!

[@mayonnaiseeee]

The recipes look amazing and that clip from Dan in the middle was very good to know.

[@mssuezee6178]

I was just thinking of you girls, I love you two ❤

[@joanwright5840]

Oh yes, love these guys!!,,

[@MichaelREFLECTS]

Excellent video as always!

[@mellie4174]

Omg! So making that!

[@elizabethdiblasio7825]

Every looks so yummy!

[@susanhudek1596]

Looks so good!

[@semco72057]

I love the look of that chicken cutlet dish and have to try making it. I have not eaten any of the chocolate semifreddo dessert before, but have to try it once I get the ingredients needed.

[@colleenpiechowski8511]

Great recipe...thx

[@raybroomall8383]

to thicken the Cherry sauce for the Semifreddo try using Arrowroot. It makes a clear glaze and has less flavor.

[@jeromewhitmill733]

Sweet

[@savannarichard6059]

Yummy

[@ellenreilley3938]

I am definitely going to try this but I often wonder why lemons (in a lot of recipes) are not seeded. I don’t like to munch into a seed. That always bothers me, lol.

[@mandywaynick8725]

I made that tonight but it had heavy cream and white wine and I put some corn starch in it cause I like my sauce a bit thicker

[@TheNoodle6]

So many dif ways to make piccata. As an asst. Chef in a local Italian restaurant in my town (and no, not a chain like olive garden lol) mighty big claim saying that it is the "perfect" recipe lolol

[@theAviatoor]

I’ve always knew that Andrea Bocelli can make a sick chicken piccata.

[@nickpiccirilli4278]

why no white wine in the sauce?

[@daniellegroover4710]

I thought the same.... I think it would make the perfect last addition to this recipe!

[@AustenSolvie]

Possibly too much acidity. The lemon is bright and white wine is usually bright so when you double the acidity you might have too much. There are ways to get around this. Adding more fat or a tiny bit of baking soda.

[@johnritchie3889]

a pinch of red pepper flakes when you start the shallots goes a long way. Not enough that it tastes hot, but just enough to warm it.

[@elizabethshaw734]

Does anybody know what brand those red dutch ovens are in the background? Thank you! :-)

[@louisephotiou8685]

Le Cruset

[@jeannemarie6747]

staub

[@shirleyvice57]

If you don't have kosher salt, can you use table salt?

[@ThreeDee912]

If you don’t have kosher salt, you can typically substitute about half the amount of regular table salt by volume. For example, 1/2 teaspoon of table salt is about the same by weight as 1 teaspoon of Crystal Diamond brand kosher salt. Morton brand kosher salt is somewhere in between.

[@XavierKatzone]

Nice - and no chatter, silly jokes, ooos, ahhhs, and giggles (in the picatta, at least!).

[@joeymama4666]

3:13 giggle

[@elizabethshaw734]

I'm not so sure I like this Keith guy but that's probably neither here nor there. Everybody probably has their favorites. :-)

[@robs4574]

Wow Keith has beautiful hands

[@CilantroTea]

I could listen and look at Keith all day 🥵

[@hungabunabunga3645]

Can I substitute heavy cream for whipping cream? Please answer me i wanna make it

[@trinathebookworm8977]

Heavy cream and whipping cream are the same thing, so you're good to go!

[@joeymama4666]

Whipping cream has about 30% milkfat, while heavy cream has 36% milkfat. Ironically it's easier to whip heavy cream than to whip whipping cream. Still both of them are close enough in milkfat that you can always substitute one for the other.

[@mssuezee6178]

Yeah!!!! Keith awesome job! Chicken breasts.That's supper, I have everything already. Thanks kids. 🙋🌹🌹🙏🙏

[@mssuezee6178]

Do you think rice is a good starch with it?

[@hungabunabunga3645]

I think French fries would be great

[@daniellegroover4710]

Or buttered parm noodles!

[@trinathebookworm8977]

I'm thinking salted caramel sauce and sweetened whip cream.

[@boofyhalfpint8559]

mandarin in a rum sauce would be yummy!

[@trinathebookworm8977]

Or fresh strawberries.

[@Oliver-hh6hy]

i watched this

[@rufusred44]

I agree with leaving the lemon skins in the sauce but eating them? Doesn't it take a long time before you can eat lemon skin?

[@zizzie4081]

Semi fraido: The Godfather in an 18 wheeler. Try this: Se-Me Fred-doh

[@Nocturne22]

And if they did pronounce semifreddo the Italian way, people would complain that it sounds fake and out of place. So whatever.

[@bethbilous4720]

I just really did not know you could really eat lemon skin. Hmph,

[@lareinadiondra6027]

The Shakers made a pie by piling alternating layers of very thinly sliced lemons with sugar. It looks like it'd be nasty with all that lemon and it's peel still on, but its really good.

[@suemauer5965]

This made me smile - when my kids were little (2 years apart) one would eat the inside of the lemon, the other would eat the outside!

[@ningcheng_shu]

Regarding to Dan's experiment, when your hands in contact with a large heat reservoir (a huge bucket of ice or butter cubes), I would say thermal conductivity matters more than heat capacity. In a freezing winter day, everyone could feel the difference between wearing a pair of gloves made of just pure cotton cloth and that containing a thin layer of fluffy raw cotton between two sheets of pure cotton cloth. Basically they are the same chemically, but the fluffy raw cotton has a huge number of air pockets, making it a better heat insulator (a worse thermal conductor).

[@LENZ5369]

They are related. (the equation is in the link) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_effusivity

[@ningcheng_shu]

@@LENZ5369 The temperature of the contact surface between Dan's hand and ice cubes could indeed be calculated straightforwardly, with another thermal property: thermal effusivity, defined as the square root of the product of the material's thermal conductivity and its volumetric heat capacity, according to the link provided. Thank you very much. A real pleasure.

[@jaimehyatt7977]

Can the chicken be thighs?

[@kendallweaver6386]

Please give us recipes that reflect the times we are currently living through that do not rely on meat or chicken for protein, which many of us quarantined at home cannot get for home delivery. Thanks much!

[@anderander5662]

My sister in law would be triggered by cutting chicken on a WOOD board.....I guess she never saw an old fashioned butcher shop with a hundred year old chopping block.

[@miaththered]

Hello!

[@TheRealMichaelH]

Please fix your Season 19 playlist. You've already fixed some things, now all you need to do is move "Roast Chicken and Sprouts" to the #3 position where it belongs. Keep going, you're almost there.

[@max50011]

Those cutlets look really thin, 3 min each side and 4 min in the sauce, that seems like it would over cook those cutlets .... I'm skeptical

[@greeneyes2256]

max50011 The cutlets are one half inch thick. I use this method frequently, and it always works. The salt brine truly keeps the meat moist.

[@deirdreescobar8108]

So you eat the entire lemon slice🤔

[@brendafain9962]

I think so, but check out what Bo Lewis said as a comment. It makes sense. I'm vegetarian and I am going to try the recipe for my family, but with Bo's suggestion. God bless.

[@tfo1013]

You put your hand in some ice and it'll start melting almost immediately, and you'll have ice cold water thoroughly covering your hand. You put your hand into butter and the butter cubes aren't going to melt much. Meaning your hand really only gets cold only where the butter cubes touch and your hand gets colder slower. If you want to show the differences in thermal mass use a different test.

[@copperdaylight]

...melting...

[@forget3817]

Salting the chicken, as acknowledged, will change the texture of the chicken, just like brining does. I don't like that changed texture. Flouring the chicken should help hold the moisture in without the need to "marinate" the chicken in salt ahead of time.

[@ningcheng_shu]

Why the chocolate semifreddo is harder to melt than ice cream, might be better explained by the difference in mass density between the two. If you melt a cup of ice cream, you would get a small pool of liquid (milk, cream, and probably some thickening agent if bought from supermarket), if you melt the same volume of the semifreddo, you could get quite a lot (cream, eggs and chocolate) compared with the ice cream. So more substance, more heat to get melted. Modern day industrially manufactured ice cream does contain a fair amount of air. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher used to work as a food scientist at Lyons, then a food conglomerate in UK, performing tests on cakes and artificial ice cream, after her chemistry degree from Oxford. There was an apocryphal story that she helped to produce a kind of "soft-scoop" ice cream by whipping more air into the ice cream, upon which she was occasionally ridiculed on British cooking programs, quite a stunning political character though.

[@ningcheng_shu]

It's still a mistake (mine) to explain why the chocolate semifreddo is harder to melt than ice cream, by their difference in mass density. The higher heat capacity of more condensed semifreddo may contribute to the difference in how easily the two melt, but probably is not the defining factor. To produce ice cream, nowadays large food companies do use considerably higher content of cream with a lot of air whipped into it, to create a soft, smooth texture, so the whipped heavy cream in the semifreddo recipe wouldn't make the difference either, though higher content of air does help to prevent the melting in both cases. Then what's the most significant difference in ingredient, between ice cream and chocolate semifreddo? CHOCOLATE, I would say. Good chocolate will melt at 30C~32C, lower than body temperature. So the question comes down to the phase change phenomenon of the mixture of water and chocolate. Below the melting point of water, both water and chocolate are solid. Above the melting point of water but below that of chocolate, ice is starting to melt, but the chocolate is still solid, so with the solid support of chocolate, you can still cut the semifreddo with a knife at the room temperature. Above the melting point of chocolate 32C, everything melts. That's the reason why the chocolate semifreddo is so light and refreshing when consumed. If you replace the chocolate in the semifreddo recipe with flour, the resultant would be something like the batter of a chiffon cake. After freezing, probably you can still cut with a knife at the room temperature, but when you eat the frozen batter, it would be much harder to melt. So nothing compares to chocolate. It's worth to say the phase change phenomenon of a mixture of inert ingredients with different melting points, does not always resemble that of water and chocolate mixture. Under rarer circumstances, some ingredients could form a eutectic mixture at certain ratio, which would have a single melting point lower than either of the components. The effect would be just opposite to what has been observed on the phase change behavior of the water and chocolate mixture. The eutectic mixture would be easier to melt than each of the components.

[@christianhansen3292]

when u gonna invite chris kimball as guest for a cameo reunion show? i know he is doing quite well at milk street..but u know?

[@christianhansen3292]

love Julia's sense of humour!-'shircular' ha! never had a semifreddo before those cherries look devine.

[@wwoods66]

They didn't even have him for the 20th anniversary show, so....

[@colleenpiechowski8511]

I think he left with some perpritory info and was sued.

[@judyweinstock9972]

That chicken piccata looks delicious,but they put lemon slices with seeds in there. Yuck.

[@coldcountess]

I would candy walnuts, I don't care for almonds or pecans !!

[@madness42192]

I can’t believe atk is out here telling me to salt my chicken before cooking and acting like it’s some innovative technique

[@johnstadelman4022]

There were seeds in the lemon. You didn't address their removal.

[@nidhavellir]

You're right. Arrest them!

[@marycoombe2436]

Coffee make chocolate taste burnt!

[@nevecenere]

I'd never eat the white skin of a lemon. It's as bitter as hell

[@injunsun]

Updating them vegan would be more useful.

[@tylerwunder]

Why does Bridget have to stick her tongue out before she eats a bite of food? I can't unsee it.

[@gabriellafiabane8144]

buuuuu I am italian not this Piccata

[@ljay4996]

Why would you ever make an Italian dish with vegetable oil and not olive oil ??? How stupid.

[@CrazyTuco1]

I don't like leaving lemons in the sauce. STUPID.

[@joeymama4666]

Just because you don't like lemons in the sauce, that doesn't mean you're stupid. You're being too hard on yourself.

[@sarahmaywoodruff1443]

Then takr the lemons out of the sauce they will never ever know.

[@coldcountess]

I hate capers

[@CrazyTuco1]

Don't mix cherries and chocolate....disgusting.