Peas on the Plate

I sure hope you didn’t come here on February 13th looking for a carefully curated Valentine’s Day dinner recipe, because if so, you were brutally disappointed because I was way too busy going to other food blogs to figure out what I would be making for Rob.

Chicken cordon bleu is one of his favorite meals. It was one of my favorites too when I was a kid and I kind of forgot about it – the freezer kind that’s not remotely real, but still delicious because when you take it out of the oven, it’s full of molten cheese and ham. How can you go wrong?

The idea of making a frozen meal for my Valentine made me a little sad, especially because he’s an incredible gift giver and I’m terrible at it, so I decided I’d make it from scratch. Here’s where things went off the rails: as I flipped through recipe after recipe, I realized that he deserved something more majestic than some slices of ham wrapped in fried chicken. If I was going to make it from scratch, it was going to go to 11.

So on the night of February 13, I was wandering around the aisles of our local grocery store, abandoned by everyone except several men possibly trying to figure out the same thing I was: “what the hell am I gonna do tomorrow?”

Then I figured it out: rather than slices of ham and cheese, it was going to be prosciutto (AKA glorified ham slices) along with provolone and maybe a few shreds of parmesan. And because chicken thighs are a little more decadent and juicy, maybe they’d bake up a little better and be less at risk for drying out in my incredibly moody, inaccurate oven. I would accompany it with the sauce in this recipe, because you’ll never find me turning down a dijon cream sauce and it seemed like, flavor-wise, it would all go together. Please note the deliberate avoidance of the use of the phrase “flavor profile.”

The result is a recipe that took approximately 700 years to bake but it was worth it. It was so, so, so good. This made four stuffed thighs: two medium-sized ones and two significantly smaller ones because the package of thighs I got was not uniformly cut in any way, shape, or form. Here’s a gross photo of the meal in progress to illustrate:

Make this for someone you love, or someone you hate that you plan on booting from your life so they spend the rest of their days missing your cooking. After all, what good are talents if you don’t plan on weaponizing them?

Prosciutto and Provolone Stuffed Chicken

Yield: 2 – 3 servings

Prep Time: 45 minutes

Cook Time: 35 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes

This is enough to stuff 2 large boneless chicken thighs and 2 smaller ones (see photo above). Serve it with the delicious dijon cream sauce over at Recipe Tin Eats!

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Ingredients

• Oil or cooking spray
• 2 small boneless chicken thighs
• 2 medium-sized boneless chicken thighs
• Salt and pepper
• 1 C provolone cheese, cut into chunks or slices
• 4 tbsp parmesan, grated
• 8 slices of prosciutto

For the Breading:

• 1 C panko breadcrumbs
• 1 1/2 TBSP Dijon mustard
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp flour

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Spread panko breadcrumbs on a baking tray and spray with cooking spray. Bake for 3 minutes or until light golden. Remove and scrape into bowl to cool.
3. Open each chicken thigh – you shouldn’t have to cut it, but if you do, go for it.
4. On the bottom half of the chicken, layer 2 slices of prosciutto.
5. Follow with the slices or blocks of provolone.
6. Sprinkle with shredded parmesan.
7. Fold the thighs back in half and close with toothpicks.
8. In a bowl, whisk together the flour and the egg.
9. Dredge the chicken in the egg mixture, then roll in the panko breadcrumbs to coat.
10. Transfer to a foil-lined baking pan and spray with cooking spray.
11. Bake for 35 minutes, or until golden brown and just cooked through at 165 degrees. Remove toothpicks before serving.