CORDON BLEU A LA GRECQUE

Ham left over from a soup night and chicken breasts on sale inspired this remake of a classic. The CORDON BLEU  chicken dish Is a classic French inspired dish of thinly sliced chicken (or Veal) wrapped around ham and cheese (usually Swiss) and breaded and fried.  Its name in French means Blue Ribbon.  It also refer to a chef of the highest class.
Sounds pretty fancy does it?  Well it looks like it, tastes like it but I promise it is not hard at all. Love that french accent!

My version is a bit lighter, as I choose not to coat it in egg wash, bread crumbs and fry it in oil and to just roll and bake with a light sauce to keep it moist.
The method of using escalopes (thinly pounded meat) lends for your imagination to run wild.  Any stuffing can be used:  all kinds of vegetables such as spinach, mushrooms, asparagus, broccolli, tomatoes ; all kinds of cheeses such as blue, cream, swiss, cheddar, jack ; fruits like apples, peaches and  cranberries.  The combinations are endless and I promise to bring many to you in future blogs.  Go Dump Cooks and experiment.

 CORDON BLEU A LA GRECQUE

4 chicken breasts
4 slices of ham
4 slices of cheddar cheese
Salt, pepper to taste

SAUCE

½ cup Greek style plain yogurt
½ cup Feta cheese crumbled
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/8 teaspoon oregano
Sprinkle Paprika

Place the breasts one at a time on saran wrap on your cutting board.

Split the chicken breasts by slicing down the side to ALMOST through and spread open (called butterflying).

Place between saran wrap and pound  with a mallet ( you can use a back of a pan, rolling pin or just about anything hard) until thin all over thus making Escalopes (thinly pounded meat)   This also doubles the size of the breast.  I keep the saran wrap down on the cutting board to help in clean up.

Salt and pepper the breasts on both sides and lay flat. Place one slice of ham and then the slice of cheese on top of the breast.

From one end roll the chicken into a log shape. 

 Pick up carefully and place seam side down in a baking dish that will hold the four fillets nicely allowing not much room around the edges. If you roll them neatly, transfer them carefully and keep them snuggled up to each other in the pan, you will not need to place toothpicks in them to hold their shape.

Remember we are using Chicken …. Yes, you have heard it all before but, wash your hands well, your surfaces that raw meat has touched and utensils before they come in contact with other items.  Using the saran wrap to keep the cutting board covered helps a lot.

To make the sauce: Mix the feta, Greek yogurt (you need this kind as it is creamy and thick), mustard, oregano and mix to blend.  Spread over the chicken and sprinkle with Paprika for a nice bit of color. Cover with tin foil.

Bake at 350 F degrees for 45 minutes. Uncover and broil for 5 minutes. Serve with sauce scooped up and placed on top. Get the cheese and creamy sauce and leave the fat.

As always be your own Creative Dump Cook and change this recipe to what YOU have on hand!