Ingredients
3 whole chicken breasts
9 slices cured polish ham
2 1/2 tbsp seedless raspberry jam
1 1/2 cup uncooked rice
3 cup water
1 1/2 lb broccoli
7 slices provalone cheese
Directions
Use vegetable oil or cooking spray to lightly grease a large baking
dish. (I used a 9x12" cake tin.) Remove the broccoli heads from the
stems. Trim the stems, slice and chop coarsely like celery. Put the
rice and the chopped broccoli stems in the bottom of the baking dish.
Spread the ham slices with raspberry jam and wrap them (raspberry
side down) around all sides of each chicken breast. Arrange the
chicken breasts down the center of the dish, break the broccoli head
into pieces and place around the chicken. Add 3 c. water.
Cover and bake 45 min. at 350'F. Remove dish from oven (to check
chicken for doneness, cut into it with a knife or fork -- meat should
be white, juices should run clear), cover chicken breasts with slices
of cheese and put additional pieces of cheese over the rice and
broccoli, then return to oven and bake uncovered another 5-10 min.
until cheese is melted. It will look & smell wonderful! Split
chicken breasts to serve 4-6.
I suppose this is similar to chicken cordon bleu (?), but it seemed
much easier than stuffing deboned chicken breasts, and the rice and
broccoli are delicious cooked this way. I didn't add salt, pepper,
or other seasonings because the ham I used was so delicious and
strongly flavored; use your judgement. Asparagus and/or mushrooms
would probably be good substitutes for the broccoli. I liked the
subtle flavor added by the raspberry jam, which was not too sweet;
probably you could substitute another jam or a small amount of honey.
Jill
Servings: 1 servings
Chicken With Ham & Provalone Cheese Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Cheese; Chicken; Ham; Meat; Pork
The History of Recipes
Written cooking instructions as a concept can be found back into antiquity, certainly as far back into history as early Egypt, and maybe even further. Having said that, these, early cook books were just very simple hieroglyphic or cunieform instructions for meal preparation.
Fascinatingly, the oldest recipe discovered so far, according to historians are a few stone tablets in the Sumerian language which describe the preparation of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as having made people feel exhilarated. Progressing into The time of the roman empire around 25BC a man called Apicius compiled a collection of scripts detailing recipes enjoyed by wealthy roman citizens. In his scrolls, he tells us how the roman meals were divided into starters, main course and dessert, a very modern way of dining. Additionally, he recounts how the Romans were skilled in the use of a wide range of aromatic flavors, including a few that will be familiar to modern cooks like bay, mint and asafoetida. Over the following few centuries, the wealthy families of the West competed to serve the most extravagent meals, and because of this chefs and their recipes were greatly in demand. Notwithstanding that, it was during the nineteenth century that haute cuisine and cookery books reached a high level of popularity. Mrs Beeton in the UK, and the equally well-known Fannie Merritt Farmer in the US, devoted much of their lives to assembling, trying out, and publishing recipes to allow everyone to enjoy them. When we get to the 1900s, cooking books were highly popular mostly as a result of higher levels of literacy, increased leisure time and having more money. The arrival of TV brought us TV cooks and the demand for the accompanying recipe books. Which pretty much brings us up to date and the internet revolution, permitting everybody to access massive numbers of recipes just like those on sites such as this. |
We hope you enjoy this Chicken With Ham & Provalone Cheese recipe.
