Published May 1, 1999.
Nothing dresses up a chicken breast recipe like a quick pan sauce. We found that the best way to create a flavorful sauce was to make use of the fond, those bits of meat and traces of juice that caramelize on the pan surface during cooking and are loaded with flavor. The easiest way to release that flavor into a sauce was to use a liquid to lift off and dissolve the fond in a process known as deglazing. We used wine, water, juice, brandy, stock, vinegar, or a combination thereof to create a variety of flavorful pan sauces, boiling down the liquid to reduce and thicken.
To minimize the amount of time the cutlets wait in the oven, prepare the sauce ingredients before sautéing the chicken.
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