Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breast with a Hazelnut Crust

Oh! I like stuffing the chicken breasts. I pound them out, put the goodness inside and roll them up. Typically, I use a feta, bell pepper and spinach filling but this time I got a bit fancier. I engaged a step from a lamb chop recipe I made once — I slathered the stuffed chicken breast in Dijon mustard and then rolled that in crushed, toasted hazelnuts! Crazy! What follows are the directions to the best of my recollections but I was really just winging it. Hee! (Chicken..get it? Winging it…okay, moving on then).

Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breast with a Hazelnut Crust:
2 boneless & skinless chicken breasts, trimmed of extra fat, pounded flat
1/3 cup goat cheese
1/2 tbsp chopped fresh tarragon
1/2 tsp orange zest
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 cup hazelnuts, toasted* and crushed
1 tbsp olive oil
salt & pepper
toothpicks

Garnish: wilted spinach and roma tomatoes

Preheat oven to 375. Mash the goat cheese, garlic, tarragon and orange zest together. Salt and pepper the chicken breasts. Divide the goat cheese mixture up among the two breasts, setting it on one half, leaving a bit of a border around it. Roll each breast up, securing with one or two toothpicks. Liberally coat the chicken with the Dijon mustard, then roll in the hazelnuts.

Heat the oil in a non-stick skillet under medium-high heat. Add the chicken and sauté until golden on each side, about 1-2 minutes. Burnt nuts = bad. Golden nuts = good. It can happen very quick, so keep an eye on things! Remove from pan and transfer to a baking sheet. Finish in the oven — about 12-15 minutes, but use a thermometer to be sure.To be honest, I can’t remember exactly how long they were in there. Start checking after 10 minutes. The final temp should read 165.

A garnish:
While the chicken was in the oven I tossed about three cups of spinach in the pan (with the chickeny/nutty olive oil) and let it wilt down with some salt and pepper and a clove of minced garlic. I used the last roma tomato from the garden, sliced it and laid that out on the bed of greens, then topped each with a chicken breast.

Remember to remove the toothpicks!

* Chances are your hazelnuts will have the brown papery skin on them when you buy them. Here’s what I do: Toast them like that whole, skin on, in a 350 degreee oven for a few minutes — again, when you can smell them and they smell good, they are done. If they smell like burning nuts, they are burnt. While they are still warm, gather them all into a kitchen towel and rub, rub, rub. This will get rid of a lot of that papery skin. Then, put the hazelnuts in a zip lock bag and crush with a heavy rolling pin.