Chicken in vinegar sauce

Melt plenty of butter in a saute pan on medium heat without letting it burn.

Lay the chicken straight in and colour it only lightly -- no searing, low heat, so the meat develops flavour and stays tender.

The butter is there to almost poach the chicken rather than fry it, so use a lot of it and keep the colour very light.

Drop the heat if it bubbles too hard; you want a light brown at most. Check at five minutes.

Turn the heat off at ten minutes, when the colouring is still very light.

Add a few pieces of thyme and a bay leaf.

Cook in a conventional (not fan) oven at 210C for 20 minutes.

Lift the meat out into a tray, spoon a little of the pan sauce over so it does not dry, cover with foil and hold it in the switched-off oven with the door open.

On high heat, drive off the water the chicken has released until only the butter is left and it starts to look syrupy.

Add the shallots to the chicken butter and cook them about five minutes.

Add 250 ml of vinegar and reduce by half on high heat.

Turn the heat off completely and work fresh butter in piece by piece, swirling the pan or moving it with a spoon, to raise the sauce -- this must be done off the heat.

Season with a little pepper and a tiny bit of salt.

Coat the chicken with the sauce.

To finish, stir the juices from the resting tray into the sauce with a little more butter to tone the vinegar down -- with the heat off, or it breaks.

His own correction for next time: less vinegar, and reduce it until almost gone before the butter goes in.