Chicken Cordon Bleu with Prosciutto

As I said in our last post, after our St. Martin vacation, Mr. S and I have a renewed interest for a little French flair in our cooking. In St. Martin, we often saw chicken cordon bleu on the menu, but since we were in the Caribbean, we definitely gravitated towards fresh seafood at most meals. But, ever since, I've been wanting to dig up my mom's old recipe. As a child, my mom used to make chicken cordon bleu and it was always one of my favorites.  She had found the recipe in an old cookbook and over the years had made a number of tweaks.  I took her tweaked recipe and we made some of our own.

Two of the main tweaks we made to this recipe were using prosciutto instead of ham, and adding fresh sage both inside and to the top.

Chicken Cordon Bleu 
Ingredients
4 chicken breasts
8 pieces of prosciutto
20 fresh sage leaves
1 cup of all purpose flour
1 tsp poultry seasoning
1/2 Tbsp of canola or vegetable oil
8-16 oz of mozzarella cheese, cut into 1/2 inch thick slices or cubes (depending on how much cheese you prefer)
1-2 lemons
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1.  Preheat over to 375

2.  Mix flour, poultry seasoning, salt and pepper in a shallow dish.

3.  Fill a glass backing dish with 1/2 inch of water, squeeze 1/2 a lemon in the water.

4.  Place the prosciutto in a skillet with a tad of oil and fry it for 1-2 minutes to get it a little browned.

5.  Pound the chicken breasts with a mallet until about 1/2 inch thick. (We usually put ours in a open plastic bag so the juices don't get everywhere and we don't ruin the meat.

6. Dredge chicken breasts in flour, covering both sides of them.

7. Place 2 slices of prosciutto and 3 sage leaves on one half of each chicken breast.  Then fold the rest of the chicken breast over.

8.  Heat oil in non-stick skillet on medium high heat until shimmering.  Add chicken breasts and cook on one side until golden brown, about 3-4 minutes. (Turn heat down if necessary to avoid burning). Flip the chicken breasts over and cook on the other side until browned. (Chicken should NOT be cooked through).
9. Place the browned chicken breasts in glass baking dish.  Open each chicken breasts and put in mozzarella cheese.
10.  Squeeze the remaining lemon on the chicken breasts.  If you really like lemon like us, you can squeeze another 1/2 or even a whole lemon on top!
11. Place the chicken in the oven and bake until the chicken is cooked through, 25-30 minutes depending on the thickness of the chicken.  IMPORTANT:  As the chicken is cooking use a baster to suck up the liquid and baste the chicken breasts while they cook.  Do this often and the chicken will end up very tender, otherwise it could get dry.  I did this 3-4 times every five minutes while it was cooking and a bunch times after we pulled it out of the oven.

Cooking BEYOND the first year of marriage!

My gosh, it has been WAY too long since we wrote an entry into this blog.  The fall was packed full of weddings, joyous occasions, and fun.  While we wouldn't trade that for the world, it left little time for blogging.  As you will notice...the title of our blog has changed to include .....and BEYOND.  We hope to blog even more in 2015.

Since we last wrote, Mr. S and I celebrated our first anniversary on 1.4.15.  We spent the day and the 10 days surrounding it in the tropical paradise of St. Martin enjoying turquoise waters and lots of French food.  Yes, I said FRENCH food.   If you are a foodie like us and have never been to St. Martin, definitely add it to your bucket list.  Half of the island is French - meaning language, food, and culture is extraordinarily pervasive.  Fresh baguettes, Fine french wines, and gourmet food abounds, particularly in the gorgeous seaside town of Grand Case.  It was by far one of our favorite dining spots on the island and we visited many times over our 10 day visit. Mr. S has been interested in French cooking for quite sometime and our time in St. Martin piqued my interest too.  We were so inspired by the gorgeous presentation and delicious food and hoping to take a French cooking class sometime this year! 

 Anniversary Meal - Fish and Seafood tasting menu at Le Pressoir in Grand Case.

Sunset in Grand Case