Holidays

10 days ago, I  jetted off to the South of France for some family downtime, and have returned bronzed and slightly more relaxed after some great food, wine, sunshine and swimming. Being a family holiday, there were hoards of ravenous people between the ages of 6 and 60 who needed to be fed at least twice daily (I am ambivalent about breakfast, especially in the heat). I grabbed a sister, and we headed for the kitchen.

After several days in which we explored every possible incarnation of salades composées we were ready for something more substantial and decided to try making saltimbocca. Well, we were pretty close to the Italian border after all. Saltimbocca means ‘jumps in the mouth’, which is nice, and would be a talking point for our captive diners if nothing else.  It is traditionally made with veal, and the meat is lined and rolled with prosciutto and sage before being fried in butter and marsala wine. Yummy. Obviously, as happens with the best laid plans (and even slightly non-thought out plans) we couldn’t find sage anywhere and half of the family wouldn’t eat veal. We nailed the prosciutto though, it was on special offer. Replacing the veal with chicken and the sage with blue cheese (why not) we set to work.

Sort-of-saltimbocca (serves 6)

6 large chicken breasts

6 pieces of prosciutto

1 pack of St Agur cheese.

Important note: yes, we were in France and approximately 10 minutes away from an artisan cheese stall at the market, but I find that ‘good’ blue cheese, when heated, can quite easily become grainy, bitter, stringy and sour. So I will normally use a light commercial one, such as St Agur, for cooking purposes. Ok? Good. Onwards.

Some flour

Salt and pepper

Butter

Cocktail sticks

Method:

-Season some flour on plate and set aside.

-Bash the chicken breasts flat with any implement you have to hand. They need to be really quite flat. I find putting the breasts in sandwich bags first avoids all sorts of ‘flying raw meat’ type of issues.

-Lay a piece of prosciutto on each bashed breast

-Put some blobs of St Agur in the middle of each piece

-Carefully dip the back of each breast (i.e. not the side that has all the stuff on it, obviously) into the flour.

-Roll up the chicken. Tuck in any bits that stick out and secure the whole thing with cocktail sticks.

Important note: whilst it may feel more secure and indeed even really fun to go mental with the cocktail sticks, I would advise you, from bitter experience, to use the minimum necessary to achieve the effect of a sturdy parcel. The little suckers do not come out easily. We had to use pliers.

-In a large, heavy based frying pan, melt some butter and place the chicken rolls in to brown on all sides (as much as this is possible with the cocktail sticks poking out everywhere). Reduce the heat and leave, turning occasionally, until cooked. This should take around 20 minutes.

-Meanwhile, we threw the remainder of the St Agur, some odds and ends of slightly old Roquefort and a splash of milk into a pan and simmered it gently to form a thin sauce.

-Serve with a large green salad.