Anyway, the season ended last week and it was definitely my turn to do some cooking. I chose to make Apple/Fontina/Cranberry Stuffed Chicken, Lemon Asparagus, Spinach Couscous. The chicken got rave reviews from the ladies (including myself). Ross thought the leftovers were pretty good too :) Check out the recipe below.
Drizzle Sauce: White wine and Cranberry Reduction. It bubbled away for ~2-3 hours.
The chicken gets charred on the grill, to give the breasts the nice cross-hatched markings. Then, they're stuffed with caramelized apples, fontina cheese, and dried cranberries before heading into to the oven to cook. So good!
Spinach Couscous
Roasted Lemon Asparagus
Stuffed Chicken topped with wine reduction.
Finished plating!
The ladies: Kaity, Emily, Kim, Sierra, and Roma (of course!)
Apple/Fontina/Cranberry Stuffed Chicken
Recipe from Step by Step Gourmet
Helpful Hints...
1. This is a great dish for dinner parties as the chicken breasts can be grilled and stuffed and then refrigerated up to 24 hours in advance.
2. Try to find chicken breasts that are thicker in the middle, giving you plenty of room for your stuffing.
3. I would recommend some sort of accompanying sauce. In the pictures below I made a cranberry wine sauce using 3 cups white wine, 1 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup dried cranberries and 1 Tbs dijon mustard, brought to a boil then simmered for several hours.
INGREDIENTS
Marinade
4 Tbs red wine vinegar
6 Tbs apple cider vinegar
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp dry mustard
4 tsp honey
5/6 cup olive oil
Chicken and Stuffing
8 chicken breasts, boneless and skinless
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 medium Fuji apples
1 Tbs unsalted butter
4 oz fontina cheese, shredded
4 oz dried cranberries
DIRECTIONS
Marinade
1. Place the red wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar, the mustards and honey in a food processor.
2. Turn it on and drizzle in the olive oil until fully incorporated / emulsified.
3. Marinade the chicken breasts overnight in this mixture.
4. Hold breasts in the refrigerator until ready to stuff.
Stuffing
1. Peel, core, and very roughly chop the apples.
2. Melt the butter in a saute pan over medium high heat and add the apples.
3. Cook the apples for roughly 5 to 10 minutes or until they are deeply browned.
Prep
1. Preheat grill to high.
2. Remove chicken breasts from the marinade and transfer to a plate.
3. Season them with salt and pepper.
4. Mark the chicken breasts by grilling them only long enough to make grill marks and then rotating them about 45 degrees to make crosshatch marks. Do this on one side only. The chicken breasts should still be completely raw inside.
5. Remove from heat and transfer to a mixing bowl.
6. Add the fontina and cranberries and mix.
6. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper.
Chicken
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Cut a slit in the thicker side of the chicken breast about 1 inch wide, creating a pocket almost as large as the breast itself.
3. Stuff the breasts with the apple stuffing mix, cramming in as much as possible without ripping the breast.
4. At this point the breasts are ready to bake and can either be held in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours or baked right away.
5. When ready to bake, place on a baking sheet and bake for about 12-15 minutes or until an instant read thermometer registers 155 degrees in the thickest part of the breast.
6. Let the meat sit and slice each breast for plating. Drizzle with sauce!
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