the Older Bolder Life Friday Feast 7 February: Lemon Bomb Piccata Sauce

With an eye toward a special Valentine’s day dinner coming up next week, here’s a nifty Lemon Bomb Piccata Sauce recipe perfect for fancy-ing up dinner, whether it’s completing a classic piccata chicken recipe, or drizzled over your favorite roasted vegetable hot from the oven or grill.

With the help of my friend Chef Libby in Austin I’ve been playing around with classic and not-so-classic piccata sauce recipes for little while now. Almost all the recipes you see out there feature, in some combination, the bursting acidity of fresh lemon, the umami of sautéed alliums (most often garlic and shallots), the briny funk of capers, along with a handful of other ingredients – including a healthy dose of fat (butter and/or olive oil), a reduced white wine or vermouth, and a bit of other liquids.

As one of our overarching goals here at Older Bolder helping you find great tasting food that’s geared to prepare efficiently in the home kitchen, this recipe also needed to be (relatively) easy to prepare at home, not too fussy in terms of ingredients or technique, and damned tasty.

This Lemon Bomb Piccata Sauce is right on target.

By the way, when we enjoy this recipe at home, we’re typically drizzling over chicken, shrimp, or a mild tasting fish (it’s really tasty on pork chops as well) as well as a vegetable side (most often oven-roasted during the cooler months, grilled during the warmer) – so note this recipe yields a fair amount of sauce. You can easily halve this one and it works like a charm.

And given that we really enjoy big flavors here at home, this recipe is very lemon forward (hence the ‘lemon bomb’ name), but as written it’s very very well balanced.

For this post, I’ve snapped a few quick images of the sauce served over thin-cut, pasture-raised chicken breasts, coated with a grated parmesan and almond flour dredge (quick recipe below), alongside a big dollop of roasted organic spaghetti squash. Wow, was this one good.

Finally, most classic piccata sauces call for the addition of a splash of white wine or vermouth; you can do it with or without as noted below without impacting the integrity of the sauce in any way. Of note, my lovely wife thinks it’s best with a splash of vermouth reduced down…

8 tbsp grass-fed butter
2 medium shallots, finely chopped
2 medium garlic cloves, minced
1 medium lemon, cut into half-moons
1/3 cup + 1 scant tbsp fresh lemon juice
3 tbsp capers, rough chop (can add more)
1/2 cup chicken or vegetable broth (see note*)
Good salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
Chopped parsley

For the quick sautéed chicken
2 large boneless/skinless chicken breasts, split horizontally and pounded to 1/4”
3 tbsp finely ground almond flour
3 tbsp finely grated parmesan
1 tsp good salt
1 tsp fresh ground pepper

Into a medium skillet over medium heat goes the butter, shallots, garlic cloves, lemon pieces, along with a generous pinch of good salt. As the butter melts, stir now and again, lowering the heat to medium low after about two minutes – you don’t want to caramelize the shallots or garlic, just soften them.

*If using a bit of wine or vermouth, add 1/4 cup now, and reduce until almost gone; then add the lemon juice and capers and stir for another two minutes, then add 1/3 cup of broth or water and bring to gentle simmer, stirring now and again until the sauce is glossy and smooth.

*If not using wine or vermouth, add the lemon juice and capers and stir for another two minutes, then add 1/2 cup of broth or water and bring to gentle simmer, stirring now and again until the sauce is glossy and smooth.

At this point remove from the heat, adjust for salt and pepper, and pour over your protein or veg and top with freshly chopped parsley.

Enjoy.