chicken stuffed with prosciutto and parmesan, rice pilaf, zucchini and red pepper saute

***in which i learn an abundance of things, including to always cook stuffed chicken longer than one would imagine because one's husband probably doesn't want salmonella, to always keep toothpicks on hand lest you want to wrestle with ridiculous bamboo skewers, and that sadly enough, Uncle Ben makes a better rice pilaf than I ever have***


Boneless, skinless chicken cutlets. Is there anything on earth more boring than this? These bland, beige items are right up there with other boring things like: sitting in the waiting room of an auto-body shop while your car is being worked on, the MSDN programmer magazines my husband subscribes to, and my Water Resources and Management textbook.

Thanks to a tip from my mother-in-law, I make liberal use of Ken's Light Caesar dressing as a marinade, freezing two servings of chicken in the dressing and then thawing when I'm ready to use it. But after just eating roasted chicken breasts yesterday, I wasn't kosher with just throwing these little guys on the grill. So I decided to venture into unchartered territory and devise my own recipe.

Now, this was nothing ground-breaking - for millions of years, people have been stuffing things with things. From my great-grandmother's halupki (stuffed cabbage - which my dad lovingly calls "hand grenades") to the beautiful simplicity of chicken kiev (stuffing chicken with - wait for it - a big hunk of cold, salty butter, OMFG how good does that sound? Weight Watchers be damned), my decision to stuff chicken breasts with various and sundry accoutrement was surely not something to write to Ripley's about. Believe It Or Not!

And my flavor combination - prosciutto di parma and parmigiano reggiano - certainly isn't anything new either. It was more a case of whatever I have in the fridge can go into this chicken. I did, however, listen to an interview with Anne Burrell on Martha Stewart Radio the other day, and she advocated cooking onions low and slow to caramelize them. I thought the slightly sweet, caramely flavor of browned onions would pair nicely with the nutty parmigiano and the salty proscuitto, so I threw that into the mix.

Since my chicken breasts happened to be unusually long and thin, I decided to pound them out and roll them around the filling, instead of butterflying and stuffing. Needless to say, since the chicken was coated in marinade, I ended up with spatters of chicken juice-Caesar dressing all over the front of me. And since my grater was in the dishwasher, I opted to just cut the parmesan into tiny cubes instead of grating it, which meant it didn't melt as well.

Here's the (basic) recipe:

Chicken Stuffed with Proscuitto di Parma, Parmigiano Reggiano and Caramelized Onions

2 chicken breasts, marinated in Ken's Light Caesar dressing
2 slices Proscuitto di Parma
2 oz. grated Parmigiano Reggiano
1/2 red onion
Olive oil
White wine
Water

1. Preheat oven to 375. Slice the onions into thin, inch-long strips. Cook in a skillet on low heat for 20-30 minutes, until browned, softened and sweet. I added a splash of white balsamic vinegar.
2. Pound out the chicken breasts until they are as thin as you can get them. Top each flattened breast with one slice of prosciutto, one ounce of the fresh parmigiano reggiano, and half the onions. Roll up and secure with toothpicks (or, in my case, bamboo skewers. Don't ask.) and season with sea salt and pepper to taste.
3. Coat oven-ready saute pan with olive oil, and heat. Brown chicken roll-ups on all sides.
4. Mix about 1/8 cup of water and 1/8 cup of white wine, and pour over the chicken. Transfer pan to the oven, and let roast for about 20-30 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.
5. Top chicken with pan juices - if you aren't as lazy as me, you could make a simple roux and do a quick pan-gravy. I just poured it over top and it was great.


Verdict - yummy! The onions and parmigiano really give it a nutty sweetness, and the prosciutto and caesar marinade give it a tangy, saltiness that contrasts nicely with the sweet. I love a little salty with my sweet! I think this would also be really good sliced and served over pasta with some tomato sauce.

Also, um, be sure you cook the chicken long enough. I was working with two very disparately sized breasts (heh. heh.), and my small one was done very quickly. I assumed that since they were pounded so thinly, they wouldn't take more than 15 minutes in the oven after being thoroughly browned on all sides - yeah, that was a mistake. Scott cut into his and it was still a little raw inside - discovered after he took the first bite. Oops! I should have stuck my faulty meat thermometer in there, but that thing never works anyway. So just make sure you pull back the chicken and check for doneness before serving. Can you imagine what Colicchio would have said?!

I served this over some Uncle Ben's Rice Pilaf - a great choice for weeknights as it takes only 10 minutes and I like it better than Near East, which takes 25.

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For a side dish, I made a spicy red pepper, mushroom and zucchini saute, using a combination of ingredients which is a total standby for me. Thus, I have labeled it the Standby Spicy Saute.


Standby Spicy Saute Base

1 tsp butter
1 Tbsp minced garlic (I buy the minced garlic packed in olive oil from Wegmans and love it. Saves the hand-stench and the need to scrub your garlic crusher)
1 heaping Tbsp Vietnamese chili garlic sauce (you can also use sambal oelek if you prefer)
1/4 cup soy sauce

Stir all these ingredients together over medium-high heat. Then add whatever vegetables you like. I haven't found one thing I don't like sauteed in this mixture. And if you don't keep chili garlic sauce on hand, that needs to change. Like, right now. I go through a whole jar of this stuff in like a week - it's spicy, but not heart-stoppingly so, and has such a beautiful flavor to it.