Chicken Roulades and Baby Artichokes

Tuesday 1 May

We saw an ad with Kelsey Nixon boosting this recipe on TV, and out of curiousity, looked up the details on the internet.

It is one insane recipe.  You go through a long messy process of de-skinning and stripping down 2 chickens just to get 4 chicken breasts to roll up in the buttered chicken skin, and at the end she blithely tells you to make soup with all the rest!  We would get at least 4 meals out of packing up double thighs, drumsticks, and wings, not to mention the pickings from the broth we make - from the carcass, not the good meal-worthy parts. 

So as usual, we adapted, and came up with something that sane (read cheap) people might make.  In fact, we did it with only one - giant, 13-oz. - skinless chicken breast, which is what we happened to have.

So: butterflied, and pounded the chicken breast until we had two broad swaths of it, then cut it in half, salted, and peppered.

For the filling, gathered about 6 big leaves of chard from the yard, stripped from the stems, and chopped it fine.  In a big pan, sautéed a Tablespoon of pine nuts in butter, then added the chard and stirred until it was quite wilted.  Put it in a bowl and mixed it with 3 oz. goat cheese, a half lemon's worth of zest, and a teaspoon of chopped rosemary. 

Then just put half the filling along one side of each chicken scallopine, rolled up, and secured the ends and side with 3 toothpicks.  Baked in an oiled pan at 350º for a little over 20 minutes until the interior temperature was 165º, then ran under the broiler a couple of minutes until golden.  And it didn't leak as much as I bet that buttery-skinned stuff does.  You have to let it rest at least 5 minutes before slicing, but it looks great when you do.

For our side dish we had 9 baby artichokes we rescued from Madison's last week.  After the usual trimming - no need to remove the choke with these babies - we halved and boiled them for 8 minutes, then fried them in olive oil for 3 minutes a side, until brown and crisp.  Showered them with salt, and they went very well with our off-the-cuff chicken roulades.  

Take that, Kelsey!