Chicken Stuffed with Butter

What's better than chicken with butter sauce on it?  Chicken with butter sauce IN it!  I've always been a fan of Chicken Kiev, and quite frankly I've always been fascinated by how people managed to make it and have the butter stay inside.  I wanted to figure it out, so why not cook it?

As a side dish I settled on Orzo with Parmesan and Basil.  Way back in the day my mom used to make an orzo dish with asiago cheese that I loved, and I've been looking for that recipe and can't find it anywhere, so I figured this would do.  Also, mom can you send it to me if you have it?

Chicken Kiev
- 4 skinless boneless chicken breast halves
- 1 Tbsp chopped green onion
- 1 Tbsp snipped fresh parsley (what the hell does snipped mean? that's stupid, I chopped it)
- 1 garlic clove, minced (or 4, we've already discussed my feelings on garlic)
- The recipe says 1/4 pound (pound?) of butter.  As much as I love butter that seems excessive.  You need 1 stick quartered into long sticks
- 1 egg beaten like a red-headed step child
- 1 Tbsp water
- 1/4 cup flour
- 1/2 cup bread crumbs (conveniently I still had some from the chicken piccata)
- 1 Tbsp butter (more butter, what the hell, you'll understand later)
- 1 Tbsp olive oil (it says cooking oil, but thats wildly vague)

Chop your green onion, parsley and mince your garlic.  I'm back home so I had my garlic press this time.  A few quick notes on chopping green onion in case you are unfamiliar.  Cut off the little sprouty end (where its white) and work your way from there.  I generally discard the last inch or so.  I actually don't know if this is how you are supposed to cut green onion, but its how I watched my parents do it, so it seemed like a good idea.

Combine the ingredients in a bowl, mix it around and set it aside.

Here's where things started to go horribly wrong for me.  Take the chicken breast and cover it in parchment paper and using a mallet pound it out to about 1/8 inch thick.  Seems simple enough right?  Well you'd be wrong, I definitely shredded one of the chicken tits.   It was not pretty.  So if it can't be pounded properly, wrapping it was going to be a real bitch.  Because of the pseudo-disaster that happened with the first one, I was a little more cautious with the others and really only pounded them to about 1/4 inch thick.

Once you're done pounding the chicken, sprinkle them with salt and pepper and coat one side with the green onion mixture.

The instructions then say to take on of the little rectangles of butter and place it the center of the chicken piece, fold in the sides and roll up.  This barely works at best.  My shredded piece of chicken was definitely a mess and the other pieces weren't thin or big enough to completely enclose the butter.

When you've rolled the chicken (poorly in my case), put the flour and bread crumbs on separate plates. And whisk the egg and water together on another plate.  Dip the chicken first in the flour (woohoo I didn't make my kitchen look like Whitney Houston's personal playground. Too soon? I never know.)

Next drag it through the egg, and lastly the bread crumbs.  This process was not nearly as fun as it was with just a chicken breast.  I was trying to keep them all rolled nicely, it was not easy.  Also, make sure you really get it coated with the bread crumbs, allegedly this will help "seal" the butter inside the chicken.  I'll be honest I'm not sure how well that worked.

Don't use bowls, really bad idea on my part

After rolling and breading (is that a word? it is now) the chicken, place it in a glass baking dish, cover and chill.  The recipe says for 1-24 hours.  I gave it about 35 minutes because quite frankly I was hungry and didn't start the recipe early enough.  We all have to make sacrifices.

Preheat the oven to 400.  When the requisite chilling time is complete, melt the other tablespoon of butter in a pan over medium-high heat and then add the oil.  Cook the chicken rolls for about five minutes, turning with relative frequency in order to brown all sides.  This was a disaster.  The chicken was trying to unroll itself, my tongs kept "removing" bread crumbs.  I was displeased.  Place them in a baking dish when finished (if you're smart, wash the one you already used.  Hooray for saving dishes and no e coli!)

Put the chicken in the oven uncovered for 15-18 minutes.  I went with 18.  There was still a little pink on mine so I let it ride for about 20 minutes or so.  When its all done, pull it out, put it on a plate and even spoon some of the drippings from the pan over the chicken.

Orzo with Parmesan and Basil


- 3 Tbsp butter (are you noticing a theme with my cooking and the amount of butter involved? I need some new recipes or more time at the gym)
- 1 1/2 cup Orzo
- 3 cups chicken or vegetable stock
- 6 Tbsp of fresh chopped basil (oh that is so much basil, who's excited - this guy)
- 1 cup parmesan cheese (slight variation, since I had been craving the asiago orzo recipe, I added a quarter cup of asiago as well.  extra cheese please)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper

This recipe is unbelievably simple.  Even you can make it, yes you.  Melt the butter over medium heat and add the orzo.  Saute the orzo until its starts to get golden brown, just a few minutes.  Add the broth and cover and simmer for 20 minutes.  For those of you that don't know, let me drop some knowledge on you.  When it says simmer, that means reduce the heat and let it sit.  Actually I really hope that I didn't need to explain that to any of you, because if you didn't know that...you know what I won't even insult you even though I should.

When all the broth has been absorbed, remove from the heat add the basil and cheese and mix it all up.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Yes this last step is basically every recipe's way of saying please take bites before actually serving this.  You know you wanted to do it anyway, now you have permission.

So here's how this went down. The chicken was a huge pain in the ass, ended up kind of ugly looking but still delicious.  It was cooked in butter, how could it not be?  The hero of the meal was definitely the orzo though, that was phenomenal.  Opened a bottle of Gnarly Head Zinfandel with dinner, which I hadn't tried before.  And as usual if you have the means I highly recommend picking it up, it was tasty.

I'm starting to wonder if I have really good luck picking out wines or if I'll drink anything I put in front of myself.  Either way I win.

Recipes: http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/main-courses/orzo-with-parmesan-and-basil-2/
http://www.recipe.com/chicken-kiev/