Mr. X is awfully good at making me delicious foodstuffs. Of course, because I am forgetful, I didn’t have my laptop all weekend and am only getting around to writing about it now. Saturday night, before the Christmas Explosion party, and after I had finished my ghetto Christmas present embroidery, he made a tasty and remarkably uncomplicated dinner with three different kinds of meat. Yay meat! I took notes and pictures.
Apparently, there is a black market bacon-selling ring where Mr. X works, and last week, he bought three pounds of awesome bacon. Just look at it:
I mean, that is worth smuggling, I think. Alright, it’s not really a black market bacon ring. It’s from the Amana Meat Shop and Smokehouse in Iowa, but Mr. X really does have three pounds of it, so I believe there will be a lot of bacon recipes in the near future. And I will need to double my trips to the gym.
The bacon Saturday night was cooked up with some brussel sprouts and fingerling potatoes. Bacon is what makes brussel sprouts really, really good. The chicken was stuffed with smoked gouda and salami. Cheese and salami make chicken really, really good. Here is how Mr. X did everything:
Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Brussel Sprouts and Fingerling Potatoes
- 2 chicken breasts
- About 2 c. brussel sprouts
- About 1/2 lb. of fingerling potatoes
- 1 large shallot
- garlic (we used 3 cloves, but you can probably use as much as you want)
- 3 slices of bacon, preferably thick cut
- 2 small tomatoes
- Olive oil
- Salt and Pepper
- Smoked gouda, cut into about 4 pieces, sized to fit inside the chicken
- 6 slices of salami, thinly cut
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Trim any loose leaves off the brussel sprouts, and cut them in half. Trim the fingerlings so they are about 2 inches long and 1/2 an inch thick. Chop up your shallot and garlic.
Cook up three slices of bacon in an oven-proof skillet, until it is almost done, and you have a fair amount of bacon fat in the pan. Remove the bacon, and add the shallot and garlic, and let it cook for a minute or two. Meanwhile, chop the bacon into smaller pieces. When the shallots are starting to brown, add the brussel sprouts. Let them sit without stirring for a few minutes, so they can brown a little bit, then add the potatoes and the bacon. Stir it up so everything is covered in oil (you might have to add a little more olive oil or something here), and then cover the skillet and stick it in the oven. This should cook for about 20-30 minutes, and you might want to take the lid off halfway through, once the brussel sprouts have been kind of steamed.
While that is cooking up, butterfly the chicken.
Mr. X cut through the thick part of the chicken breast so it had a kind of flap, as you can see above. Then just layer the salami and cheese into the chicken breast, and close it back up. You shouldn’t need a toothpick or anything to keep it closed. You could probably also pound the chicken breasts thin and roll them up, but then you would need toothpicks or something. Season the chicken breasts with salt and pepper, and heat some olive oil in another oven-proof skillet.
You’ll just want to pan sear one side of the chicken before putting it into the oven. I don’t really know why. Sear it for about 3-5 minutes, and then turn the chicken breasts over and put the whole skillet in the oven, uncovered. These should cook for about 15 minutes, so if you’re lucky, everything will be done at the same time.
While everything is cooking in the oven, dice some tomatoes, and toss with oil, vinegar, and salt and pepper. I guess this is kind of just for garnishing purposes, but they did taste very nice.
All told, this took about 40 minutes, which is a super quick dinner for Mr. X.
Coming next: more bacon, in the morning.