2010 Cooking Club Week 20: Chicken and Parma Ham with steamed asparagus

kikililly

Hi

This is one of the staples in our house, its an easy one and i ended up doing it because its full of ingredients that I usually have in the fridge. Hope its not too simple for you and that you like it. Hopefully I'll cook it tonight and try figure out how to post pics and I'll do a step by step then.....

Ingredients ( for 2 people )- Bear in mind most of the seasoning is a bit slap dash and adjust to your own taste

2 Chicken Breasts
6 Slices of Parma ( or serrano i'm sure is fine)
Parmesan for Grating
A Lemon (you only need the rind)
Pepper
Fresh Tyme
Fresh Rosemary
A bunch of Asparagus

Take the chicken breasts and butterfly them and spread them as flat as you can manage trying to make sure there are no places that are much thicker than the rest.

Grind some nice black pepper over each of the butterflyed chicken breasts and gererously grate parmesan over aswell.
Take the lemon and grate some of the rind on top of this, this is so strong a flavour but it really gives the dish a little dept so its an important step.
Then chop the thyme and rosemary and sprinkle over the rest.

Take the slices of Ham and place flat over the ''sprinkles'' of other ingredients, and over lap the slices a little, each chicken breast should take about 3 slices.

Take a sheet of cling film and place it over the ham and get your rolling pin and give it a good bash. The chicken should flatten out and expand to the edges of the sheets of parma and be fairly flat.

I find the chicken is so wide I can only fit one at a time in the pan.

Heat your pan up so its fairly hot but don't add any oil. when the pan is hot put in your chicken and parma ham, ham side down. Cook this until the ham is crispy and the chicken has cooked through to the middle, then turn and finish the cooking on the chicken side.

This can then be sliced into pieces or fingers to serve.

While the cooking is going on turn on your steamer and put in your bunch of washed asparagus with the woody stalk end removed. Steam these for about 5 mins ( you still want them to have a bit of a crunch to them, I hate soggy asparagus) Give them a sprinkle of pepper when they are cooked and throw on a little knob of butter to serve.

Pile it all up on a plate to serve and enjoy:D

Faith

This sounds lovely. Must give it a try once my exams are over!

John Mason

hmmm, they sound great

will be doing them over the weekend

thanks

blueirishangel

Yeah I've made chicken breasts like these from jamie Oliver recipe. Lovely with potato gratin.

kikililly

Oooh I haven't had potato Gratin in ages, it would be lovely with it.

How I ended up with the recipe was because i had chicken and i had parma and wanted something different so i googled both ingredients and this is what i came out with. It could well have originated with Jamie Oliver because its quite italian alright and thats definately his style.

I have the photos taken now and a full belly after dinner but i can't figure out how to put them on at all. I'll get the other half to try put them up.:P

unkel

This is Jamie Oliver's recipe, isn't it? Here's his video

One of our regulars, I just made it last night again for 8 people, they all loved it! I find the crucial bit to have medium to high heat and no more than 3 minutes per side!

kikililly

Hey Unkel, How do you do it for 8 people? I make it for 2 using 2 pans because each chicken breast ends up so large. Do you cook in batches?

Little Alex

I'm going to make this over the weekend. Sounds lovely and I even have some asparagus left from last week's recipe!

Thank you too, unkel. Well spotted, by the way. I was trying to figure out how the ham and chicken stayed whole. The video was very helpful.

unkel

Little Alex wrote: »

I was trying to figure out how the ham and chicken stayed whole. The video was very helpful.

That's what I found! My cooking got much better / more adventurous after trying this. Thank you Jamie Oliver

kikililly wrote: »

Hey Unkel, How do you do it for 8 people? I make it for 2 using 2 pans because each chicken breast ends up so large. Do you cook in batches?

Using two large frying pans both with two fillets. So that meant 2 batches - there was 6 minutes between serving the first 4 and the last 4 people

Kimia

Very excited - doing this tonight! I too liked the video and was finding it hard to visualise until I saw it. Thanks for the thread!

Seaneh

Great quick and tasty recipe, been using it as a staple for when friends are over for years, looks fancy but it's so simple and takes seconds so you don't spend your evening in the kitchen.

Malari

That's what I like - quick and simple recipe so you don't have to spend ages cooking when it's 25 degrees outside

Tastes nice and light with the lemony tang. Beautiful with boiled new potatoes in a little butter and pepper.

TechnoPool

savage grub man cheers, 6 happy people stuffed send their regards!

Mr Magnolia

Twas lovely and will be doing it again, room to adjust the ingredients which is great. I had a potato rosti in there too.

Little Alex

I made your recipe this evening, kikililly, and it was lovely!

I made mine with Black Forest ham from LIDL and I swirled the asparagus in the pan juices with some salt after steaming them.

Mr Magnolia

Little Alex wrote: »

I swirled the asparagus in the pan juices.

Gas, I did the same.


I like my asparagus oven baked or grilled though it was nice steamed too.

Loopy

This looks really nice - going to try make it this week end.

Little Alex

Mr Magnolia wrote: »

Gas, I did the same.

No point in wasting all that goodness!

We have the same chopping board! Our one is round, though. Nice coffee machine BTW.

clouter

Just made this today. Easy to make, quick and very very tasty.
Definitely will be making this again.

thanks for the recipe!

nice1franko

Made this a good while ago but only getting to the pics now...



Lovely stuff. I never butterfly chicken breasts and bash them like that but it's great - you get loads of flavours in there and you can cook it so it's all nice n juicy because it's all the same width. Going to be doing this a lot more often with different spices n stuff to so very grateful for the new technique.

Danke!