Stuffed Chicken Breast
[caption id="attachment_1057" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Stuffed Chicken Breast---->Click To Enlarge"]
[/caption]I love stuffed chicken breast! It is one of my favorite dishes to make and stuffed chicken breast recipes are plentiful, as you can stuff them with just about anything you can think of. It is one of the dishes that my girlfriend really loves me to make. When I make a stuffed chicken breast recipe I usually buy a whole chicken and bone it out to the part the way I need them. I do this for two reasons and the first one is that I am doing my best to be economical in this current economy I am sure all of you have seen the price of food lately, and the other reason is that I like to keep up with my knife skills.
It went like this: I went shopping for the items I would need to make my stuffed chicken breast dish and the main item I needed was the chicken. I went to a couple of markets to check prices on things because to tell the truth I love to shop and dilly dally in the supermarket always looking for something I can use on sale. The average price I was seeing for boneless and skinless chicken breast was $3.50 per pound! Ouch! It used to be $1.50 or less! Don't get me wrong, I am not cheap at all and I always buy the best I can get in anything I want, but at this point in time I am doing my best to be frugal. So at one market I shop at they were selling whole chickens with a coupon and card for $3.00! I bought a 5LB chicken for $3.00! Now that's a bargain!
So, I bought my bird and the rest of the items I needed to make this dish and away I went home to make stuffed chicken breast. Here is another kicker about buying the whole bird which was a money saver, and that is the fact that after I separated the meat from the ribs, I used those ribs and some vegetable ends that any good cook can and should be saving and I made a wonderful chicken stock that I will use for many other recipes.
I cut and stuffed the chicken breast with the cranberry, pistachio and Gorgonzola stuffing and cooked the breasts on the stove top in my Anolon Nouvelle Copper nonstick pan until they were about halfway done and then I put them in the oven at 450 degrees. I put the potatoes in the oven about ten minutes before the stuffed chicken breasts so that everything would be ready at the same time. the potatoes I mixed up in a 1.5qt Pyrex Baking Dish and the white wine sauce was made in the same Anolon nonstick pan that I used for the stuffed chicken breast recipe. I hope you enjoy the video and I truly hope that you make this dish, it really is delicious!
The Brine:
1 cup of any kind of white wine.
1 tsp. sugar.
1 tsp. salt.
1/2 tsp. black pepper.
1/2 tsp. olive oil.
1 tbsp. lemon juice.
Mix all ingredients in a glass bowl and put the chicken breasts in the brine for minimum 2hrs before prep for stuffing.
The Pilaf:
1 cup white rice.
2 1/2 cups of chicken broth/stock.
1 tsp. salt.
1/2 tsp black pepper.
1/4 to 1/2 tsp garlic granules.
1 tsp olive oil.
Pour olive oil in saucepan and heat it up. Once hot then pour in the rice and coat the rice with the oil until translucent. When translucent pour in the chicken stock and stir. Bring to a boil and stir again. Put lid on sauce pot and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes and in that time stir it at least once more. Then take off of the heat and let stand 5 to 10 minutes until the rice is fluffy.
Once the rice is done put about half of the rice into a either a glass or large metal bowl and add the following ingredients:
1 to 1 1/2 tbsp of finely chopped dried cranberries.
2 tbsp. rough chopped unsalted pistachio's. Rough chop for depth of texture and crunch.
1/2 cup or more of Gorgonzola cheese.
Salt and pepper to taste if needed.
Mix all the ingredients together in the bowl while the rice is still hot/warm as it will soften the cranberries and pistachios and it will get creamy from the Gorgonzola cheese! Yummy! Put this mixture aside until it is time to make the stuffed chicken breast.
Cutting The Chicken Breasts: See The Above Video.
Take a sharp knife and start a cut into the breast about one inch from whatever end you are starting at.Lightly cut across the breast lengthwise until about one inch from the end of the breast.Separate the cut and see how deep the cut is. Go deeper to make a pocket but don't cut all the way through the breast.Once this is done, take one side of the pocket flap and stick the knife into that and create a side pocket on each side of the initial cut of the breast. PLEASE WATCH VIDEO TO SEE HOW THE CUT IS DONE.
Garlic And Rosemary Potatoes:
4+ potatoes of any kind you want rough chopped into one inch chunks.
Put in glass bowl or Pyrex baking dish and pour some olive oil over the potatoes and mix the oil into the potatoes.
Next sprinkle some salt and black pepper on the potatoes and mix.
Next sprinkle some dried and crushed rosemary over the potatoes and then sprinkle some garlic granules over the potatoes and mix it all up. Once this is done put the potatoes aside or in the refrigerator until it is time to put in the oven to cook which will be about 10 to 15 minutes before you put the stuffed chicken breasts in the oven.
Cooking The Stuffed Chicken Breasts:
After the chicken breasts have been cut properly(watch video) it is time to stuff them with the rice, gorgonzola, pistachio, and cranberry mixture made earlier. Make sure your oven is preheated to 450 degrees. Now stuff the chicken breasts with the mixture and really get it in there and don't forget to stuff the side pockets either. Once stuffed, salt and pepper to taste and put in your skillet. I used a 10 inch Anolon Nouvelle Copper pan, I just love it! Now, cook the breasts on the stove top on a medium high heat using 1 tbsp of butter mixed with 1 tbsp of olive oil. Butter for taste and olive oil for smoke point. The butter and olive oil will let the stuffed chicken breasts caramelize on the bottom and mix with the pan juices so that you can make the white wine sauce for the chicken. When the stuffed chicken breasts are about 40% done in the pan put the potatoes in the oven. When the stuffed breasts are 50% done put them in preheated 459 degree oven for 20-30 minutes as each oven cooks a bit differently.
White Wine Sauce:
When the stuffed chicken breasts are done take the pan out of the oven, turn off the heat in the oven if the potatoes are done and if not then leave the heat on until they are done. Plate the breasts and cover them to keep them warm while making the white wine sauce.
1/4 cup white dry white wine.
2 tbsp. flour.
Add wine and flour to pan juices and stir/whisk into a smooth paste.
Make the paste a nut brown color to get the flavor of the flour out of the paste.
Add 1/2 to 1 cup of chicken stock depending on how thick you want your sauce.
Add 1/2 to 3/4 finely chopped mushrooms of choice. I added mine raw and cooked them in the sauce which worked fine, but in retrospect I would saute the mushrooms in some chicken stock or oil and butter in another pan before adding the the sauce mix. Now bring sauce to a boil then reduce heat to medium and reduce your sauce to the consistency you want.
Plate the stuffed chicken breast and put some potatoes on the plate and spoon your sauce over the chicken breast or you can even put the sauce on the plate first and then put the stuffed chicken breast over the sauce. The presentation is your choice. Eat and enjoy!
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