Last Saturday, after a day of partridges in Hampshire, I did something I’ve wanted to do for years. I plucked and breasted a brace of birds and made Kievs. I appreciate it was a modest ambition but, oozing home-made garlic and parsley butter, they were everything I’d hoped they would be.
The chicken Kiev, I read recently, has been an important part of European cuisine for centuries but was first introduced to this country by Marks & Spencer, with ground-up, reconstituted breast meat, in 1979. Since then, the dish has become synonymous with culinary laziness and an appetite for cheap food, whatever the environmental impact.
We’re all familiar with the idea that game is hard to cook and is only enjoyed by those with refined palates, but my Kievs were…
