Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Looks Fancy, But It's Easy!


Looks can be deceiving.  Today's recipe looks like it could be complicated, but it's soooo easy.  Trust me.!

Chicken Saltimbocca Roll-Ups
  • 4 large Boneless Chicken Breasts, sliced in half for 8 cutlets
  • 8 whole fresh sage leaves, plus 1 finely chopped
  • 4 very thin slices prosciutto
  • 3 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • 1 teaspoon Poultry Seasoning
  • salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  •  2 tablespoons flour
  • juice of 1 lemon
  • 1 1/2 cups chicken broth


Start by slicing your chicken breasts into cutlets.  Place the breast on a cutting board,  place your palm on top of it, and holding the blade of your knife parallel to the cutting board, slice right through the breast.  Continue for the remaining breasts.  You will now have 8 cutlets.

Use a meat mallet or the back of a small heavy skillet (even a rolling pin will work) to pound them to even thickness, about 1/4".

Place a half slice of prosciutto and a sage leaf on top of each cutlet.

Roll up the cutlets and secure with a toothpick.  Drizzle them with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper and the poultry seasoning.

Heat up a large skillet over medium/high heat (if you are using an electric skillet you should heat it to about 325 degrees). 

Add the remaining olive oil and cook the chicken rollups in the oil, turning about every three minutes or so, until all four sides of the rollups are browned and pretty much cooked through (later on you will be adding them back into the pan to simmer for a bit, they will have a chance to continue to cook at that time).

When the chicken is cooked, remove them from the skillet.  Reduce the heat to medium/low and add the lemon juice.
 
This should very quickly loosen all the brown bits that are stuck to the pan.  Add the butter to the pan.  When the butter has melted, whisk in the flour.


Slowly whisk in the chicken broth to make your gravy. 

Once it has reached the consistency that you like, stir in the chopped sage.


Place the chicken rollups back into the pan and allow them to simmer until any side dishes that you may be making are ready.

I made asparagus with hollandaise sauce.  I CAN make hollandaise sauce from scratch, a la Julia Child, with eggs, lemon juice and butter; however, tonight I chose NOT to.  For those nights when I want a less labor-intensive, quicker, less-likely-to-mess-it-up-because-I'm-not-paying-attention kind of hollandaise:

Thank you, Knorr, for your just-add-milk-butter-and-stir hollandaise.

Remove toothpicks before serving.  Enjoy!

Don't be afraid to make this recipe your own!  Add a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese before you roll them up, substitute a few spinach leaves if you're not fond of sage, or try turkey instead of chicken. 



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