Chick­en Breasts Stuffed With Spinach and Mozzarella

Chick­en Breasts Stuffed with Moz­zarel­la, Pesto and Spinach

(serves four)

four chick­en breast fillets

four hand­fuls spinach

4 tbsps pesto

1 ball buf­fa­lo mozzarella

16 strips streaky (Amer­i­can) bacon

16 tooth­picks

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp butter

This is mere­ly an assem­bly job.  In order to main­tain per­fect kitchen hygiene, the most impor­tant thing to do is to make sure you have removed your por­tion of spinach from the bag before you begin, and that you’ve count­ed out your bacon strips.  The last thing you want to do is con­t­a­m­i­nate the rest of the spinach and bacon with raw chick­en juice.  As well, you should have your 4 tbsps of pesto in a small dish of their own, rather than dip­ping a chick­e­ny spoon into the gen­er­al pesto pot, and have count­ed out your tooth­picks and set them aside.  Make sense?

Now, gath­er your ingre­di­ents in easy reach and get a sharp knife.  Lay each chick­en breast on a cut­ting board and care­ful­ly cut a slice hor­i­zon­tal­ly through the breast, not going all the way through to the back.  Essen­tial­ly you are mak­ing a pock­et, an enve­lope, in the chick­en breast.

Now spread a spoon­ful of pesto in the pock­et, and tuck the spinach leaves and a quar­ter of the moz­zarel­la ball into each pock­et.  As best as pos­si­ble, close up the pock­et and wrap each breast in four strips of bacon, secur­ing the bacon through the chick­en with the toothpicks.

Heat the oil and but­ter in a large, heavy skil­let and place the chick­en breasts in it.  Cook, turn­ing fre­quent­ly, for about 20–25 min­utes, pok­ing at the breasts exper­i­men­tal­ly to feel them stiff­en and become thor­ough­ly cooked inside.  Final­ly you may feel you want to cut on breast in half to ascer­tain that they are ful­ly cooked.

Serve hot.