Chicken Saltimbocca

If I were looking for a random chicken recipe to try, my criteria would include: simple, relatively easy to find ingredients, minimal prep time, around a half hour cooking time (its chicken and I’m a realist mostly), and good flavor. This recipe fits these criteria to a tee. Seriously.

Quick How To

#1 - Pick up chicken with bones and skins. I know all the boneless, skinless touts regarding less work and healthy benefits – however, for this recipe, skin was essential. Since they don’t sell boneless skin on chicken (at least nowhere I’ve heard of) you deal with it. Trust me, it’s worth dealing with the skin and bones. The recipe called for breasts. However, Mel and I both prefer dark meat. When I suggested using chicken leg and thigh quarters, she countered with using a whole, cut up chicken. This way we could still comply with the recipe (since we’d use two breasts) and still have dark meat as our experimental group. FABULOUS! (In case you don’t know already – it’s hard for me to comply with a recipe. In fact, recipe compliance might be the hardest part of cooking through this cookbook….but I digress. Back to chicken!)

#2 – Slide a knife between chicken meat and skin to separate them but don’t detach the skin completely. This was quite easy as the skin practically separated from the flesh with my fingertips.

#3 – Layer fresh sage (dried sage can be overpowering, the fresh was great!) and thinly sliced prosciutto or bacon between the skin and flesh of the chicken.

#4 – Heat butter or olive oil in a heavy frying pan. Place each piece of chicken in the oil and cook until each side is lightly browned. Add chicken broth and either dry white wine or white grape juice to the pan with a little salt and pepper. Cover and cook on medium low for about 25 minutes.

Chicken Cooking

#5 – Enjoy the wonderful aromas! Remove chicken and eat. Ruthann and I had ours with baked asparagus. I enjoyed leftovers with thin spaghetti and green beans and poured the broth over the pasta. Ruthann suggested it would’ve been great with rice.

Chicken Saltimbocca with Baked Asparagus

Response: Two emphatic “This is great, easy, quick, and tasty”. It is a definite repeat.

Thoughts: Of course, we’d change it. I thought it would be great if onions and garlic were cooked in the oil prior to adding the chicken or even added between the skin and flesh. Also, the sauce for the chicken was great over the pasta. It would be excellent modified into a cream sauce and made into a chicken and pasta dish. It is simple and flexible so there are many variations. I didn’t even get tired of eating it different ways with leftovers!

Check out Mel’s thoughts on Chicken Saltimbocca at Fabulously Fun Food!