Kitchen Twine, Three Chicken Breasts, a Handful of Pistachios & a Dream

This was originally an Emeril recipe for duck breast. Duck breast is around $25 a package at Zupans. I have turned this into a chicken breast recipe — $7 for 3 organic breasts at Trader Joes. If I were rich like Emeril, I would use duck.

I also went a little crazy with the rolling and the tying on this one. Quite honestly, this would work very nicely just rolling each breast separately. But, I wanted to see if I could join all three together and make one huge stuffed chicken log. I could. It’s these little personal victories that keep a person going, you know?

Oh! And one more noteworthy point — this is the last dish made from the jar of pistachios we got from Christmas. And we’ve loved them all. Let’s recap: Pistachio Ice Cream, Pistachio-crusted Chicken, Arugula, Mango & Onion Salad and Blood Orange Bars with Pistachio Crust.

Grab some kitchen twine and let’s do this thing.

Pistachio Duxelle Stuffed Chicken Breast with a Balsamic Dijon Sauce
2-4 chicken breasts ( I say two – four because I used three. This filling would be enough for four, I believe. If you are making two, you might want to have the stuffing ingredients).
1 tbsp olive oil
salt & pepper
Filling:
3 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup minced shallots
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 pound button mushrooms, cleaned, stemmed and chopped
1/2 cup port wine
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
1/4 cup toasted, ground pistachios
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
Sauce:
1 tbsp shallots, diced
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1/2 chicken stock
salt & pepper

Heat a skillet over medium heat. Add the butter to the pan and cook the shallots until translucent and lightly caramelized, about 1 minute. Stir in the garlic and cook for another 30 seconds. Next come the mushrooms. These need about 10 minutes. Deglaze the pan with the port and cook until it is nearly evaporated, about 3-4 more minutes.

Remove the mushrooms from the heat and allow to cool completely before adding the Parmesan, pistachios and 1/4 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper. Taste it. Yeah, it’s good.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Pound the chicken breasts out with a mallet or some sort of blunt instrument. Now, you can do this the hard way or the easy way. The hard way: lay the pounded breasts out over lapping a little bit.

Lay a line of filling down the center.

Fold up the sides of the chicken and use kitchen twine to tie up into a sausage-like shape. Season the outside with salt and pepper.

The easy way: leave each breast separate and add the filling down the middle of each one, roll up and tie. Voila. You’re done.

Whichever way you decide to approach this, now comes the searing. Heat up an ovenproof skillet and add about a tablespoon of olive oil. Add the chicken and brown each side — about 8 minutes total. Then pop into the oven to finish cooking. Mine took about 20 minutes at 400 — but check after 10 or so. You’re looking for an internal temperature of around 165. When you get there, take your chicken out of the pan and let it rest 10-15 minutes.

When ready, snip the twine and remove. Slice it carefully, to keep the filling intact. Some pieces will fall apart — they are still delicious. Lay the nicest pieces (about 3 per person) atop some rice pilaf.

The sauce
While the chicken is resting, return the skillet to the stovetop. Add the shallots, balsamic and Dijon mustard. Scrape up any brown bits and bring to a boil. Add the chicken stock and reduce, 8-10 minutes. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed. Serve drizzled over the chicken.

On the side
We had this over some rice pilaf and some sautéed zucchini with olive oil, garlic and orange zest, which is really as easy as it sounds. Just slice the zucchini up into rounds and sauté in a little olive oil with some garlic, salt and pepper. When tender add some orange zest and squeeze a little of the oranges juice into the pan.

Put it all together and it’s dinner time!