This lovely little dish is from a book a dear friend gave me for my wedding anniversary a couple of years ago and I'm ashamed to say this is the first time I've cooked out of it. I've ooh'ed and ahh'ed and read it often enough but never got anything from page to plate before. Hopefully this will be the first of many. The book? Passione The Italian Cookbook by Gennaro Contaldo.
The recipe below is one he knocked up out of the blue when he found himself with some spare chicken breasts, as you do ;) Well I for one don't as a rule because most packs come with 4 breasts and I am usually feeding 5. Which is why I was so tickled with this recipe as you cut the breasts up into smaller bits, so making it easy to stretch.
It's so simple it barely needs instructions but her goes, I'm not going to specify quantities, you know how many you are feeding and how hungry you are -
skinless, boneless chicken breasts cut into 3 to 4 chunks depending on size of breast
very thin slices of pancetta, cut in half, enough for one for each piece of chicken (now I'm sure if all he had in his fridge was proscuitto as I did the recipe would be called something different, it works too)
fresh sage leaves (one for each chunk of chicken)
2 tablespoons of olive oil
for the dressing -
120ml extra virgin olive oil
4 tbsp cider vinegar
1 tsp chopped fresh parsley
salt and fresh ground pepper
Simply lay a slice of your pancetta on your clean worksurface, top with a sage leave then wrap around a piece of chicken to encase it. Continue with the rest. Then heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat and and add the wrapped chicken. Turn the heat down a little and fry the chicken, turning often till the chicken is cooked through. Takes about 10 minutes. Meanwhile whisk the dressing ingredients together to make the dressing and pour over the hot chicken. (If serving cold serve the dressing seperately).
Simples....
In his book Gennaro suggests these as a starter or you could make ahead for party nibbles but I found with a lovely salad and some Rosemary Roasted Potatoes ( pre boil chunks of a nice potato like King Edward for 5 mins or so till just soft and fry on the hob with butter & oil and some chopped Rosemary to get browning started then toss in a few breadcrumbs and transfer to a hot oven for 20 mins or so, season well, yummy) it made a lovely main meal. Another time I might ring the changes with a sprinkle of lemon zest and grating of parmesan over the pancetta too before rolling. After all Gennaro was just messing with what he had in the fridge :)
As an aside, the plate you see the Bocconcini sitting in is part of a set that I 'liberated' from ebay. They are very old and irreplacable and I'm terrified of breaking them but I'm also a very firm believer that you shouldn't keep things for best. Every day is 'best'! But only I'm allowed to wash them :)
No comments:
Post a Comment