All Things Chill

Gorgonzola-Stuffed Chicken Breast with Herbed Polenta and Baby Arugula Dressed in a Sun-Dried Tomato, Toasted Pine Nut Vinaigrette

Yesterday, I spent the daylight hours chillin’, slightly headache-y at Jacqui’s beautifully located apartment in the heart of Wicker Park. I played with Jacqui’s iPhone with hands of lust, pet her cats until they fell asleep in my lap and played with their Airport Express WHICH IS INFINITELY COOLER THAN I ORIGINALLY THOUGHT.

I also walked to Olivia’s Market which is right by the intersection of Damen and Milwaukee… a dope area to find yourself at 3/4am with a jonezin’ a lil’ more drinky drinky & dancey dancey.

Olivia’s is a cute, well organized market with a lot of great italian products and a delightful staff. I went in there with the purpose to procure ingredients to cook Jacqui and Clint a meal, without any idea of what to make. Once I walked in, I saw their Italian section which was packed with San Marzano tomatoes (wow only $2.99!), dried polenta (those tubes are kinda gross), pine nuts and sun-dried tomatoes. I also picked up a few organic (and kinda small) chicken breasts, since they didn’t have much in the category of protein (I’ve been craving lamb a lot lately). What they lacked in meat, they made up in fresh produce. I picked up a large container of baby arugula and decided that my shopping was done. On to the fabrication!

Ingredients:

Gorgonzola-stuffed Chicken

Gorgonzola cheese
Thick chicken breasts (fresh will hold up to the knife better)
Salt and pepper to taste

Polenta

1 cup polenta
5 cups liquid (I used 1c heavy cream and 4c water)
Herbs (I put basil and oregano), minced
Optional: Cheese (Asiago, Romano or Parmesan)
Salt and pepper to taste

Toasted Pine Nut & Sun-Dried Tomato Vinaigrette

1/4 cup pine nuts (crushed almonds would be great too)
3 sun dried tomatoes minced (or cut into thin strips)
3/4 cup olive oil
1/4 tbsp. of balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
1 bunch Arugula (spinach would be a good substitute)

Fabrication

Gorgonzola Chicken Breast

Take a small knife (paring, preferred) and while applying pressure from above with your non-dominant hand, cut a small hole with your knife and “fan” the blade back-and-forth carefully (hold the chicken breast down and make a small pocket lol). Place crumbled gorgonzola inside pocket, you may use the back of a wooden spoon to help move the stuffing. Add Kosher salt to both sides of the breast and set aside until service. When ready, sear with olive oil over medium high heat until the internal temperature hits 165 degrees.

Polenta

In a small pot, bring the liquid to a boil and add salt. Slowly whisk in polenta. Then cook over low heat until thickened to desired consistency (I prefer mine to be like smooth mashed potatoes) - around 5 minutes. Before serving, toss in your herbage, cheese and freshly ground pepper.

Vinaigrette

Toast pine nuts on a pan over medium low heat (without oil) for a few minutes, shaking the pan so they don’t burn. Once finished, place the pine nuts in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients, except the olive oil. Drizzle in the oil with a whisk until combined. Dress your greens with the vinaigrette and wait for final assembly.

Plating

Take a healthy serving of polenta and place it in the middle of your plate, if your polenta is thick enough, it will make a sturdy bed for your protein. Add chicken breast and top with freshly dressed salad, adding more dressing on top if necessary. Serve and enjoy!

What’s great about this dish is that all the components can be substituted for so many other things! You can put the stuffed chicken in a sammich. Replace polenta with any mashed potato side dish. The salad could be a great stand alone with maybe a piece of seared tuna and a glass of white wine… pretty much anything your brain can think of.

If I had to do it all again, I’d hold back on the amount of polenta and get bigger chicken to make more of a dramatic presentation. Looking at the picture, I might as well not even put the damn breast in there! Hee hee. If that were the case, I’d also decrease the amount of salad I’d use to to show more of the other ingredients. Maybe I’d turn the polenta into cakes and stack ‘em up higher? LOL. Too much thinking!

As always, comments… questions? If the content of my blog is any indication, I don’t do anything but cook anyway… so I guess I’ve got a lot of free time to chat! lol.

YAY Cooking for friends!

~Spec

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 8:43 am and is filed under Cooking Culture, Cuisine, Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.