Almost Italian

Caterina de’ Medici, circa 1559

We can lay the credit (or blame) for spinach—and all the so-called “Florentine” preparations that have become part of Italian-American cuisine—on a petulant teenage bride from Tuscany, Caterina de’ Medici. As the fourteen year-old future Queen of France, she probably used the same leader-of-the-pack tactics of any princess with a following to get her courtiers to don high heeled shoes, use forks and to try spinach. Historical sources indicate that Caterina’s none-too-happy French subjects spoke of her in less-than-complimentary tones as “that @#$%^$ Florentine.” Meanwhile, the chefs who had come along as part of her trousseau seemed to know which side their brioche was buttered on; they began referring to any dish based on a bed of spinach as à la Florentine.

Italians in general, and Florentines in particular, are fond of spinach, but they save the proper Italian term alla Fiorentina for specific dishes of tripe, grilled Porterhouse steak, and schiacciatta—a uniquely Tuscan flat-bread studded with grapes. You’ll find no Pollo alla Fiorentina in a trattoria in Florence (unless there is a menu turistica and the chef is from Hoboken or Providence).

Chicken Florentine seems to have originated uptown in white-tablecloth, French-influenced restaurants. Eventually, it migrated to the cozier neighborhood restaurants where it is solidly ensconced even today. But it didn’t just pop up, intact, on the local restaurants’ menus.

Spinach, from the point of view of a commercial kitchen, is a nuisance. It doesn’t travel well, arrives gritty, and needs a lot of preparation. In the French-style restaurant uptown, a stagiaire, or rookie cook, was assigned the task of washing, removing the tough stems, and then chopping a few bushel baskets of fresh spinach during each of his shifts. This was not possible for Mom and Pop back in Little Italy. So serving dishes alla Florentine[sic] didn’t become practical for neighborhood restaurants until food conglomerates began to do the washing, processing, canning—and later, freezing. Then, it was a simple matter for a cook to take a portion of industrially-prepped spinach and sauté it briefly in garlic and olive oil to become a bed for Chicken Florentine. We think the Medicis, who knew a thing or two about conglomerates, would have been pleased.

Ingredients:

4 Boneless chicken breasts
1 cup flour, seasoned with salt & freshly ground black pepper
2 Eggs lightly beaten and seasoned with salt & freshly ground black pepper
Olive oil
4 Cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 Cup white wine
Juice of one lemon
2 Lbs. Fresh spinach, washed, drained and chopped or 2 10-oz. packages frozen spinach, thawed, drained, and chopped
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
4 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped

Preparation:

Place the seasoned flour in one shallow-sided dish and the eggs in another.

Dredge the chicken breasts in the seasoned flour, then in the egg mixture, and then in the flour again. Reserve on a plate.

Heat a sauté pan over medium-high heat, then add enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan. Add half the garlic and sauté for about 1 minute, being careful not to let the garlic burn. Add the chicken breasts and cook for about 2 minutes per side, or until they begin to turn white around the edges. Remove from the pan and reserve on a plate, covering them with aluminum foil.

Raise the heat to high, and add the white wine and lemon juice to the pan, stirring with a wooden spoon to get up any bits of chicken that have caramelized on the bottom of the pan. Boil for 2 – 3 minutes to evaporate the alcohol, and to reduce the liquid by approximately 20%. Turn off the heat, and return the chicken to the pan. Cover to keep warm.

Heat another sauté pan over medium-high heat, then add enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan. Add the remainder of the garlic and sauté for about a minute, again, being careful not to burn the garlic. Add the spinach, season with salt and pepper, and sauté until wilted and thoroughly heated through.

To Serve:

Place a mound of spinach on each of four dinner plates. Lean one of the chicken breasts up against each mound, top with the lemon-wine sauce, and garnish with the chopped parsley.

Serves four.

Be Sociable, Share!

•