Stuffed Chicken breast

bonkey

On Valentine's Day I tried out a recipe myself and my wife had been thinking about for a while. We liked it. Tried it again on guests last night, and it was a hit. So I thought I'd post it...

Get 4 chicken breasts, cut them for stuffing*, then cover in a layer of cling-film and (carefully) bat them out with a meat tenderiser a bit to give you a larger pocket.

Take 1/2 a white pudding (I recommend Shaws or Clonakilty) and smash it down, mix in a tablespoon or two of whiskey, and use this to stuff the chicken. I just use Jameson for this. I don't think an expensive single malt would really benefit the dish, but I may be wrong**

Wrap each breast in 1-2 slices of prosciutto (or seranno, or anything similar).

Sear both sides in the pan, then transfer to a roastinf tray and bung in the oven (preheated to 200) for about 20-25 mins. Turn down to about 180 halfway through, if the ham looks to be getting too dark.

Meanwhile, deglaze the frying pan with a healthy splash of whiskey (3-4 tablespoons), mix in cream to taste (about the same quantity as whiskey, in my case). When the chicken comes out of the oven, add any juices from the roasting tray to this and pepper to taste. (I had to remake this the first time cause I added a dash of salt which it really didn't need).

Allow to stand for 3-5 minutes after it comes out, then serve up, napping the chicken with the sauce.

I served it with mashed potatoes with some diced spring onion mixed through, simple boiled carrots, and red cabbage (done in red wine vinegar for something zingy as a counterpoint to cut through all the other flavours).

Yum.

jc


* The way I do this is as follows...

On a breast of chicken, there's usually a "mini-fillet" on the back. Remove this and keep it for later. There's often a bit of white sinew wunning through this - carefully cut it out (with a sharp knife, its pretty easy to run the knife underneath it, removing a minimum of meat with the sinew).

The breast will usually be thicker on one side than the other. Cut A shallow slash from the *thin* side, carefully and using a sharp knife) towards the thick side down the length. Continue using shallow slashes to deepen the pocket. This way, if you start going towards the edge, you can easily correct the direction on the next slash.

When you have the chicken stuffed, you can then bat out the "mini-fillet" you removed earlier, and use this as a cover for the pocket opening.Make sure that this part of the chicken is in the mddle of the ham when you wrap, and you will get no leakage and avoid having to use a toothpick or something to hold the chicken closed. Additionally, if you have made a mistake during your cutting of the pocket, you can use teh minifillet to close over whatever hole you cut.

** I'm wondering if something like a Lagavullin would work, especially if I changed the prosciutto to something smoked.

Diogenes

Nice.

I do chicken stuffed with mozeralla wrapped in parma ham, and dipped in breadcrumbs some time alot easier.

I've discovered the perfect fast breadcrumb. Bagels, grate them them fall apart in near perfect consistency even when relatively fresh.

still

Hi bonkey

i was just wondering why you sear the chicken wrapped thingy when it is already wrapped in some bacon, ham etc.

Im a bit of a novice but i just dont see the benefit in this.

you could dice up some bacon and fry it to crispy bit and then deglaze with whiskey and add cream for the sauce and youd have little bacon crutons in the sauce and a bacon taste (using bacon as i cant remember how to spell serano ???)

Sounds nice though. especially as i have wanted to eat this type of meal out a few times before but the stuffing is always made of black pudding and thats a no no for me.

ill be trying it sooner rather than later.

bonkey

still wrote:

i was just wondering why you sear the chicken wrapped thingy when it is already wrapped in some bacon, ham etc.

Well, usually its not 100% wrapped....in the sense that the breast will poke out of the ends of the ham....also, I find that the overall finish is better with this approach in general (I've tried it oven-only with a similar recipe, and found the result was a lot dryer).

Im a bit of a novice but i just dont see the benefit in this.

I picked it up from both watching cookery programs and reading cookery books. I have no idea why its better, I just know that you're typically told to sear/seal meat in the pan then transfer to the oven. I do it with more-or-less everything from a roasting cut (say beef) to the meat thats going into a casserole.

To be honest....maybe its entirely in the head. I know there's a lot of practices chef's will tell you is "the only right way" that others will tell you is nothing but an old wives tale. I think Heston Blumenthal maintains that sealing meat as I describe does nothing for the meat itself, but the browning of the outside can add flavour, and that the same process gives you the stuff you want to deglaze for a sauce.

So yeah...if you think its a waste of time...skip it.

you could dice up some bacon and fry it to crispy bit and then deglaze with whiskey and add cream for the sauce and youd have little bacon crutons in the sauce and a bacon taste (using bacon as i cant remember how to spell serano ???)

Not a bad idea at all...

Sounds nice though. especially as i have wanted to eat this type of meal out a few times before but the stuffing is always made of black pudding and thats a no no for me.

Yeah...I've never seen the black pudding equivalent, but since telling some people about this recipe, almost every time someone goes "isn't that normally done with black pudding".

ill be trying it sooner rather than later.

Best o' luck.

CJhaughey

I would try Talisker instead of Lagavulin, its peaty,smokey taste would go better with the smoked ham/prosciutto.

bonkey

CJhaughey wrote:

I would try Talisker instead of Lagavulin, its peaty,smokey taste would go better with the smoked ham/prosciutto.

I don't want to get into a whisky war, but Talisker is peated to about 22-25 ppm phenol content, and Lag to about 35. So if its smokey/peaty you want, Lag should beat Talisker hands down.

Personally, I'm not sll that enamoured with "regular" Talisker. Its nice, but every time I have it, I feel its just lacking something. The distillery-only cask-strength is far more to my taste, but the only Talisker I have found that I *really* like (and it ranks in my top 3 all-time whiskies) is the Distiller's Edition which is double-matured in amoroso sherry casks.

Having said that...its each to their own....and everyone's taste's differ.

CJhaughey

Thats interesting to hear, I usually drink Lagavulin and wouldn't have thought it was more peaty than Talisker, but perhaps as you say peoples tastes differ.