Chicken Breasts With Tomatoes and Capers

I've made this dish a few times now. First time I made it with fresh tomatoes and left out the tomato paste because I didn't have any, it was fantastic. Last time I added the tomato paste and didn't like it as much, the sauce was too acidic with an almost metallic taste.

Fresh or canned tomatoes will create a lot of juice, so, I took the chicken breasts out of the pan after browning, made the sauce, simmered until thickened, then added the chicken breasts back to pan to finish.

I love that NYT Cooking is resurrecting old classic recipes. 60 Minute Gourmet was one of my first cookbooks when I moved to NYC. Made this after having forgotten about it for years.

Some changes I made while making this dish: After browning the chicken breasts I removed them from the pan and set aside, made the sauce and cooked down for a bit to thicken, then added the chicken breasts back to sauce to finish. Chicken stayed juicy. Also added some black olives. Just delicious!

I'm puzzled too. You can tell from the ingredients that this isn't a standard "red sauce." Capers, a lot of vinegar, wine, etc. It's intended to be sour! I simmered it longer to let the sauce thicken up a bit. It's a braise, so the chicken didn't dry out. I had planned to serve it with pasta, but after I tasted it I ruled that out (sour thin sauces aren't the best for pasta). So I quickly boiled some mini potatoes (potatoes love vinegar!) and they went really well together.

It's summer and this is a great use for fresh tomatoes and herbs.

Two suggestions: First, use a meat thermometer. Chicken breasts may have gotten larger since Pierre wrote this, but the internal temperature of our chicken was just above 100F after nine minutes of cooking. I kept them in for another 10 minutes. Second, the dish needed a bit more salt and a dash of pepper flakes.

So...I asked my husband to take the chicken breasts out of the freezer so I could make this. When I got home I found pork chops defrosting in the sink. No worries I thought. This recipe should work for pork too. It did! served it with a side of petite green beans sautéed with onion and corn with a little butter.

Made provencale by using herbs de Provence and olives. Served with brown rice

I raise my glass again to M. Franey.
But reading some of the notes, I'm puzzled--not for the first time--by comments, e.g., on capers being too strong, and the vinegar itself making the dish too acidic, etc. Surely many readers are presumably beyond the rank-beginners' slavish level! Hey guys, you can rinse drained capers in the same small sieve you drained 'em in--just turn on the cold water! And if you're not wild about a strong vinegar flavor in any dish, just cut it with up to 1/2 water.

Made this the other night with chicken thighs. Used fresh roma tomatoes. Used less vinegar, more capers and anchovy paste as well. I omitted the wine based on other comments about runny sauce and ended up with a wonderfully rich thick sauce that I served over spaghetti squash.

You do not need to get the chicken breasts to 170 degrees and will overcook and dry them out if you try. The USDA says 165 degrees is safe. That is conservative. I take them off the heat at 160, and they continue to cook with residual heat to 165 and are juicy and perfect.

Next time I will take the chicken out of the pan and boil down the sauce before serving. We loved this one as printed and will make it again soon. Full of complex flavor without the need to add a hot red pepper ingredient as so many of my chicken sauté recipes do. Rather low-fat, too. Thanks for this one!

Using fresh local tomatoes, this was easy to make and delicious. I liked that it wasn't sweet and never add sugar to any kind of tomato sauce. The next time I'm going to cut the chicken into strips so diners can make their own portions and more of the chicken is exposed to the sauce.

I'm not fond of capers,so I leave them out but add sauteed mushrooms, kalamata olives and marinated artichokes. Delish!

Saw this this morning. Made it tonight. It was, as always a wonderful dish. Used shallots in butter, fresh Campari tomatoes and a squirt of Pomi tomato sauce, tarragon vinegar, white wine, chicken broth in a box. lots of tarragon & parsley, capers. Add sautéed chick back in. White rice, green salade, baguette, rose' wine. what's wrong with this? Yum

Look at the original recipe. It calls for half of almost everything but the chicken.

This is a technique Pierre uses in other recipes and I find it hard to prevent over-cooking the breasts. It helps to check them frequently in step 4 and remove them when done to your liking, then finish by reducing the sauce to thicken.