Chicken Cordon Bleu (chicken rolled with ham and gruyere)

Posted on February 28th, 2008 by Jeff

Chicken Cordon Bleu is a beautiful thing. It is pounded chicken breasts topped with ham and cheese. The pounded chicken breast is then rolled up tightly and secured with toothpicks. Then the chicken roll is breaded and fried in butter. You could easily make a simple pan sauce from the dripping by deglazing the pan with some wine and then stirring in some herbs and cream.

For this dish you will:

boneless skinless chicken breasts
equal amounts of sliced ham to chicken breasts
gruyere or swiss cheese (the amount that you need will depend upon how many chicken breasts you have but I like to do a couple thin slices of gruyere per chicken breast)
all-purpose flour
1 egg beaten
1/2 cup of panko or breadcrumbs (I used panko)
2 TB of unsalted butter
2 TB of high temperature oil (I used canola)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Wrap each chicken breast in a couple sheets of wax paper or saran wrap. Put the presentation side down first and the taking your trusty mallet or skillet beat the breasts till they are about 1/4 inch thickness)

Place a piece of ham and some cheese on the flattened chicken breast. Fold the ham slice over the cheese and leave about 1/2 inch around on each side of the breast from the ham.

Tightly roll the chicken breast and secure with a toothpick.

Take 3 bowls and in one bowl put the flour, the other bowl the egg, and in the third bowl the breadcrumbs or panko.

Roll the chicken breast around in the flour, then roll it around in the egg, and finally roll it around in the breadcrumbs or panko. Set aside.

In your favorite skillet over medium-high melt the butter and the oil. Once the butter has stopped foaming add in the chicken rolls and brownon all sides (about 3-5 minutes). Transfer the rolls to the oven to finish cooking (about 10 minutes).

After the rolls are done remove from the oven and set aside to rest for a couple of minutes.