Recipe: Classy Cordon Bleu

The recipe has a different name in our collection, but as the kid pointed out half way through her portion last night “this is basically just fancy cordon bleu, right?”

She pronounced it with an impeccable French tongue, too. I guess ten years of French Immersion school has finally paid off.

But she’s not wrong.

Or, at least, not too far from correct.

Anyone familiar with the already-kinda-fancy dish cordon bleu knows that a bit of chicken breast is rolled or stuffed with some ham and swiss cheese, spiced, breaded and baked. It’s a tasty bit of chicken dish with a surprise, creamy filling.

This slightly upscale alternative (which we poached from some long forgotten YouTube cooking channels) is a bit of chicken rolled or stuffed with some fancy ham (prosciutto) and some fancy cheese (we used some boursin herb and garlic), spiced, skipped the breading, and baked.

Our classy version hits the same notes as the original: savoury chicken, a warm creamy inside, but adds some unique notes that bring it up to an elevated, but still cook-at-home, quality.

Plus I get to use my big Staub braiser.

the recipe

4 slices butterflied chicken breast
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
4 tablespoons soft herb cheese
8 slices prosciutto
4 tablespoons sun dried tomatoes
8 pieces fresh basil
2 tablespoons olive oil

1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup chicken broth

After combining the salt, pepper and paprika into a rub for the chicken breasts, coat with the seasoning and lay out on a surface. The chicken is “stuffed” with a layer of each of the soft cheese, prosciutto, sun dried tomatoes and fresh basil, rolling it into a tight coil and holding together with a skewer or toothpick.

In a large cast iron braiser (or using a frying pan and a baking dish) fry the rolls about a minute per side in a bit of oil, then pour the mixture of the lemon juice and chicken broth into the braiser (or baking dish with the chicken) and bake for about 15 minutes at 425F, turning once.

The Mustard Files: Spicy Spring Dijon

I’m a bit of sucker for interesting mustards.

In fact, it used to be I’d make a special trip to the local farmers market each spring to stock my pantry with a few variety of jars of flavoured mustards that would almost always last the year …but not much longer.

The sad part is that I’m the only one in my house who loves the yellow sauce, so I’m always buying and creating mustards for an audience of one.

Creating? You ask.

Why yes, if you can call starting with a store-bought mustard and experimenting with adding your own spices and seasonings to it to enhance the mustard experience, then of course creating.

Often I’ll spin up a little bowl of spicy mustard or curry mustard or garlic mustard to accompany a plate of bratwurst or a pan-cooked chop of some kind.

And tonight was no exception.

Recipe

30ml dijon-style mustard
4 pinches of curry powder
2 pinches of ground cumin
2 pinches of cayenne pepper
1 pinch ground ginger

This particular blend turned into a medium-spicy mix that reminded me of a trip to Berlin and eating sausages on a busy street corner from a paper tray in the rain.

Appropriate then that I served it with some local sausage and looked out the window at the evening’s downpour.

Pan Fried Mushrooms

I keep a cast iron pan near my barbecue for exactly one reason: my wife loves grilled mushrooms on her hamburgers.

I know very well that a well-seasoned pan atop an outdoor gas grill has a whole host of purposes, but when you have a system like this that ain’t broke… why fix it?

We eat barbecued hamburgers at least a few times per month over the summer, and without fail we slice up a couple cups of fresh button mushrooms, toss them into the blazing hot pan with a pat of butter and a clove or two of crushed garlic.

Recipe

2 cups of sliced button mushrooms
1 tablespoon of crushed garlic
1 tablespoon of butter

The fungi heat and sizzle and brown up with a rich, lovely aroma as the burgers grill up nearby, and everything is usually ready to eat just in time, as I swoop the plate full of patties into the house with a steaming hot bowl of grilled mushrooms alongside.

These go great with hamburgers, but I’ve been know to toss grilled mushrooms atop a steak, beside some grilled pork, as part of a veggie medley, or even just to nibble on their own.

Sweet Iced Coffee

Here on the Canadian prairies the weather is as changeable as a simile about how changeable the weather can be.

Just a few weeks ago there was snow on the ground.

Today it is thirty degrees Celsius in the shade.

That’s definitely not unbearable, nor unwelcome, but after a deep cold winter it can be a bit of a shock to the body system and requires that I adjust and remember ways to adapt.

One simple way to adapt quickly is with cool drinks.

I usually start my day with a hot cup of coffee, and despite the relatively scorching weather, today was no different.

Yet when I wandered back towards my coffee pot after that first cup, I couldn’t help but pause and reconsider my second. So, instead of refilling I pulled a fresh glass from the cupboard, filled it with ice, sprinkled a bit of sugar inside, and topped it up with some of the remaining brewed coffee that was hanging out in the pot.

Recipe

500ml drinking glass filled with ice cubes
250 - 500ml of coffee (cooled)
15ml sugar

I usually drink my coffee black, but iced cold coffee seems to call out for something a little sweeter. And if you are a cream and sugar kind of person, an iced version of that variation would be delicious and refreshing as well.

I’m not sure how long the weather will stay so hot around here, nor can I know how your weather is treating you. But I can say that this is a simple drink recipe that I’ll be revisiting again in the next few days, and I can definitely hope it inspires you to feel cool and refreshed, too.