Chicken Kyiv: The Dish, The Name, The Butter
The UAFest kitchen team
August 2026 · 7 min read
Food court, Riverside Park
Chicken Kyiv is a chicken breast wrapped around a block of cold garlic-and-herb butter, crumbed, and fried until the crust is dark gold and the butter inside has turned to sauce. Cutting into it at the table is the entire point.
The spelling is the news. Kyiv is the Ukrainian transliteration of the city's name; Kiev came through Russian, and most English-language style guides moved to Kyiv in 2019. Menus have been catching up ever since.
Where the dish comes from
The history is genuinely tangled. French cuisine of the nineteenth century has côtelette de volaille, a crumbed stuffed chicken cutlet, and Russian and Ukrainian restaurant cooking absorbed it. The version tied to Kyiv — butter, garlic, herbs, a protruding wing bone — became famous in Soviet restaurants and then in British supermarkets, where it was one of the first ready meals sold chilled.
What is certain is that it carries the city's name around the world, and that the city spells its own name Kyiv.
Keeping the butter in
Three things leak: a hole in the meat, a gap in the crumb, and warm butter. Freeze the butter hard before rolling, pound the breast to an even thickness without tearing it, and crumb it twice — egg, crumb, egg, crumb.
Then chill the crumbed rolls for at least half an hour. A cold parcel going into hot fat sets its crust before the butter has any chance to melt through it.
Fry, then finish in the oven
Deep frying alone browns the crust well before a thick roll is cooked through. Fry to colour, then finish in the oven and rest for a few minutes. Serve it whole and let the person eating it break the crust.
Recipe
Chicken Kyiv
Crumbed chicken breast rolled around cold garlic-herb butter, fried and oven-finished.
- Prep
- 40 minutes
- Cook
- 25 minutes
- Total
- 1 hour 45 minutes
- Makes
- 4 servings
Ingredients
Herb butter
- 150 g soft butter
- 4 garlic cloves, crushed
- 3 tbsp chopped dill
- 2 tbsp chopped parsley
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- ½ tsp salt
Chicken
- 4 skinless chicken breasts
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 100 g all-purpose flour
- 200 g fine dry breadcrumbs
- Salt and pepper
- Sunflower oil for frying
Method
- 1Make and freeze the butterMash the butter with garlic, herbs, lemon juice and salt. Roll it into a log in cling film, then freeze it solid — at least 2 hours.
- 2Flatten the chickenButterfly each breast and pound it between two sheets of film to an even 8 mm. Work from the middle outwards so the meat spreads without tearing.
- 3RollSeason the meat. Cut the frozen butter into four batons, set one on each breast, and roll it up, folding the sides in so the butter is fully enclosed.
- 4Crumb twiceRoll each parcel in flour, then egg, then crumbs — then egg and crumbs again. Check for bald patches; that is where butter escapes. Chill the crumbed rolls 30 minutes.
- 5FryHeat 3 cm of oil to 170 °C. Fry the rolls 4 to 5 minutes, turning, until evenly deep gold.
- 6Finish and restTransfer to a rack in a 190 °C oven for 12 to 15 minutes, until the chicken reaches 74 °C at its thickest. Rest 5 minutes and serve whole.
Notes from the kitchen
- Crumbed rolls freeze well raw. Fry from frozen at a lower temperature and give them longer in the oven.
- Fresh breadcrumbs brown too fast — dry, fine crumbs give an even crust.
- Serve with dill potatoes and a spoon of the pan butter; the sauce is inside the parcel already.
Ukrainian cooking, live music and a market by the river — one Sunday in September.
Sunday, September 13, 2026 · 12 PM – 6 PM · Riverside Park, Carleton Place
What people ask
Kyiv is the Ukrainian transliteration and the spelling used by most English-language style guides since 2019. Kiev is the older form that came through Russian.
Its lineage runs through French crumbed cutlets and Russian and Ukrainian restaurant cooking, and the butter-filled version that became famous worldwide carries the name of Ukraine's capital.
Freeze the butter solid, enclose it completely, crumb the parcel twice, and chill it before frying.
Yes — spray the crumbs with oil and bake at 200 °C for 25 to 30 minutes. The crust is paler and drier than fried, and the butter still runs.
Newsletter
Get the next guide first
Recipes, festival news and vendor calls — a few emails a year, no more.
By subscribing you consent to receive festival emails from the Ukrainian Community of Lanark County. Unsubscribe anytime.