The Origin Story of Chicken A La Kiev

Chicken A La Kiev has one of the murkiest histories in food, and one that is highly political. It is disputed whether the dish was invented by a French or Russian chef. In 1700s, the Soviet aristocracy had a fascination with the French culture and food and would send their chefs to Paris to train.

The best guess is that the dish was created by one of those chefs in Paris in early 1800s. By the early 20th century it seems to have been attributed as boyh côtelettes de volaille (poultry cutlets’) and poulet à la Maréchale (something wrapped in breadcrumbs and fried). Russian food writer William Vasilyevich Pokhlyobkin claims to have traced the recipe back to early 20th century St Petersburg, where an anonymous chef created kotlety Novomikhailovskie for the Merchants’ Club.

Subsequently, the French name was lost with the fall of Tsarist era, as Soviet Union turned anti-bourgeousie, giving rise to a need for simpler, proletarian more ‘Nationalist’ terms. There is dispute though about who changed the name of the dish. Ukrainian chef Viacheslav Gribov argues that the reason for the name change is because chefs in Kiev changed the recipe. Others insist the name was coined by American or British restaurants as a way of attracting Eastern European immigrants to the restaurants.

Whichever the case, the dish is iconic as it is considered national dish of Ukraine, and has been served at state dinners. According to Pokhlyobkin, Soviet chefs revived the recipe for a banquet welcoming Ukrainian diplomats home to Kiev in the 1940s and renamed it kotlety po-Kievski – chicken Kiev.

Interestingly, Chicken A La Kiev was the first packaged frozen dinner that was sold by Marks and Spencer’s in the supermarket in 1979, a perfect example of capitalism.

As the Soviet Union disintegrated in May 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev made a speech to assembled dignitaries after a dinner at the Soviet embassy in Washington. Gorbachev announced, “We have figured out we live in one world, in one civilisation.” The dish that the General Secretary and his guests had just polished off was a perfect symbol of Russia’s new internationalism and consumerism – Chicken Kiev.

In Picture : Chicken A La Kiev from our kitchen tonight. I learnt it from Didubhai, the old fashioned way. Deboning the chicken breast to retain one wing bone (which I couldn’t do today), mixing the butter and stuffing it. It was a popular item on the club menus in Raj and after, till it fell out of favour in 1970s, along with prawn cocktails.