1 post tagged “pistachio”
I mentioned that I made a stuffed chicken dish last night and someone asked for the recipe. And I haven't Voxed about cooking for a while - mostly because I don't really seem to have done any.
This is a moderately time consuming dish - the actual steps aren't that long or complicated but there's cooking and resting times to consider so I think it took about an hour and a half in total (although I wasn't really hustling, more watching old episodes of the West Wing).
First off, I blitzed about a handful of shelled pistachios in the blender until they were coarsely chopped. I have wondered what they'd be like whole or halved - I think the texture contrast would be really interesting. But this worked just fine and the texture was good so I'm not complaining. Then I mixed them in with about half a pound of sausage meat (mild italian for the Americans following along at home) and some finely chopped flat leaf parsley and let it all rest (since mixing up the sausage meat slightly cooks the fat and tissue in the sausage meat).
Meanwhile I got 4 sheets of baking foil and drizzled some olive oil on and then seasoned them fairly generously. Then I laid down 4 slices of prosciutto (parma ham or streaky bacon would work just as well) on each so that they were overlapping (tip: try and make the pieces lie the same way with the uneven edge of the next slice overlapping the solid edge of the previous slice) and set the sheets aside.
Then I took 4 large chicken breasts and cut them almost all the way through horizontally but length ways like a baguette and then took a cigar of the sausage and pistachio mix and laid it down the middle before folding the whole thing back up and laying it down - cut side facing the prosciutto. Then I rolled the foil up into a tube, making sure the ham was overlapping, and twisted the ends in opposite directions until it was a nice, tight wrap.
I poached the 4 parcels for about 20-25 minutes (it's quite forgiving) then removed them from the water and chilled them in the fridge (beware: putting hot things in the fridge raises the ambient temperature in there) for another 20-30 minutes.
Then I took each one, carefully unwrapped it and seared it off in a hot pan - rotating frequently until the ham was crispy and there was some nice colour on everything.
After that, I let them rest for 5 minutes and then sliced them thickly at an angle and they came out looking like this
The picture doesn't quite do it justice - the stuffing had a really nice vibrant green to it.
I deglazed the pan with some port (marsala or sherry would probably also work), reduce it, added some of the poaching water and reduced again (chicken stock would probably have worked better).
This is the first time I've ever done it and it came out really well - the chicken was moist (although I think it could have benefited from maybe 5 minutes less poaching time - I missed the buzzer going by accident) and the stuffing and ham complemented the flavours perfectly. I'd like to play around with some variations - maybe throw in some finely diced dried apricots or try a version with walnut and celery stuffing and wrapped in turkey bacon for my Kosher friends. Feta and toasted pine nuts would probably work as well.
A single breast easily fed one hungry person - in fact with a more substantial side dish such as buttered noodles or mashed potato or polenta (I served them on a bed of sauteed mushrooms with spring green and avocado salad) one breast could do 2 people.
We washed it down with some excellent Piper Heidsiecke which I am delighted to report goes excellently. With anything, really.
