This was an exciting surprise I put together for Marco one coolish evening! The colder it gets, the more I want to slow-cook and make stews... must be my Irish blood, I love winter food.
I am slightly ashamed to say I found this recipe in an unmentionable woman's magazine I was flicking through at the doctors. But their version was pretty bland so I worked my own effect on it. They had no marinade or herbs, and it sounded like it would dry out to me, so here's the variation.
I marinated four free-range chicken breasts in white wine, thyme, olive oil, salt and pepper. The longer the better for this, but I left it for about four hours.
Once I was feeling crafty and nible-fingered, I gathered our kitchen string and prepared to roll. I cut the string to 40cm lengths and laid four out across a chopping board, perpendicular to the board itself (sorry, hard to explain without showing you!). We had some left over pancetta, so I used this, but you could also use prosciutto (and it would probably roll better). I placed three slices of the pancetta over the top of the string, with the slices overlapping slightly. Then I placed a chicken breast on top of this, and another breast on top of that. Lastly, I placed two or three more slices of pancetta on top, ready to tie the string. (So, by now, you should have a pile of the following layers: string on the bottom, then pancetta, two chicken breasts, more pancetta). A little bit fiddly, but now bring the string up to tie it all together, the pancetta should almost completely cover the breast and hold it all together. Because I did four breasts, I did this process twice.
That's the difficult part, I promise - the rest is super easy.
Preheat the oven to 200 deg. cel. Put some olive oil in the bottom of a good baking tray. Slice one onion and scatter this across the bottom in a thin covering. Sit the chicken rolls on top of these.
Now prepare your pears. I used about 6 not-quite-ripe pears, knowing they'd get soft and quishy in the oven anyway. Cut the pears into quarters and remove the core. In a bowl, coat the pears in 1-2 table spoons of sugar and give them a good stir.
Now, place the pears around your chicken in the baking tray. You're ready to put it in the oven!
Cook in the hot oven for about 20mins then turn down to 180 and cook for another 20mins, or until you're confident the chicken is cooked (this will all depend on how big your breasts are... tee hee).
Then voila! It's ready to serve. I cut it into slices, as shown here, and it made it easy to eat and serve. The brown stuff on top is the caramelised onion, and the golden potatoey looking things are actually pear. I served this with steamed snowpeas and with pine nut and lemon dressing. YUM!!! (if I do say so myself).
Cheers, Hannah
