Friday, April 22, 2011

Dinner Party Chicken

I swear even when my plan is to make a recipe exactly as it's written I just can't do it. I wanted to try this recipe from Mystery Lover's Kitchen using the lemon cheese in my freezer from our summer of fresh goat's milk. It was the only substitute I had planned until I realized that recipe needed the bones and skin left on the chicken (I always buy boneless skinless in the bag because of convienence). I told myself I could still deal with that and would just pound the chicken flat and roll the breasts around the stuffing. Then I realized that I didn't have any dried cranberries. Dried cranberries is a staple in our house and early that day I had passed over buying some because I knew I had a ton left in the house (apparently we used them up with baking at some point in time). So when all was said and done I didn't have any of the ingredients for this recipe.
Here is the original recipe:
Dinner Party Chicken
6 bone-in chicken breasts (with skin)
¾ cup ricotta cheese
1/3 cup sweetened dried cranberries
¼ cup dried bread crumbs
1 egg, beaten
2 tsp dried thyme
Salt and pepper to suit yourself
2 tsp butter and 2 tsp of oil
Combine cheese, cranberries, bread crumbs, egg, time and seasonings in a bowl.
Make a 2 – 3 inch slit on the side of each chicken breast, deep enough to put filling. Stuff 3 or 4 tablespoons of the filling into each chicken breast. You can prepare the recipe to this point and refrigerate the chicken until an hour before you plan to serve it. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Heat the oil and butter in a non-stick pan and brown the top of the chicken breasts. Transfer to a baking dish lined with aluminum foil. I use a jelly roll pan. Bake for 45 minutes or until cooked through. Don’t over bake! It will smell wonderful while cooking. If there's any left over, it will be great - hot or cold - the next day.

Now here is what I did:
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
3/4 cup lemon cheese (next week I will provide a recipe for this fresh cheese)
5 fresh strawberries, chopped
1/4 cup bread crumbs
2 eggs (ours were quite small)
dried thyme
Pound the chicken flat and even. Mix together the remaining ingredients in a small bowl. Set a portion of the filling on top of the chicken and roll it closed (I stuffed them so that only the far ends touched and did not overlap). Bake at 350 until the chicken is fully cooked. Because the chicken was so thin this only took about 20 minutes but I may have overcooked it slightly. The chicken was still juicy and tender and so tasty.

I had leftover filling and because of the raw eggs and contact with the raw chicken I opted to turn it into biscuits by adding 2 cups bisquick and the necessesary liquid. From there I followed the instructions on the box.

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