When doing our own shopping at our Market each week, I find it hard to go past Deirdre's whole boned free range chickens. They' are so easy to cook in different ways. A couple of weeks ago it was a Indian inspired meal and last weekend I decided to make a flavour filled stuffing and roll up and roast the chicken. It was enough for 3 for dinner and the rest we had cold the next day for lunch with a salad.
All the ingredients are available from the La Cigale Deli and Market stallholders
Proscuitto Wrapped Chicken With Two Mushroom Stuffing
1 whole boned chicken
6-7 slices of proscuitto
For the stuffing:
-approx 15g of dried porcini mushrooms - soak in water (keep the resulting water)
-approx 100g fresh shitake mushrooms – chopped
-4-5 shallots, peeled and roughly chopped or 1 chopped red onion
-2-3 cloves of crushed garlic
-a handful of raisins
-fresh bread crumbs (about thick slices of good quality bread)
-fresh herbs eg thyme, parsley, sage
-olive oil
-salt and pepper
To make the stuffing - soften the shallots, mushrooms and garlic in a frying pan with a little extra virgin olive oil.
Into your food processor put the bread and herbs and make coarse crumbs.
Mix all the ingredients together and add the water in which the mushrooms were soaked and a little olive oil so that the mixture is moist but not too soggy. Season.
Lay the chicken out, skin side down on a board. Spread the stuffing evenly on top leaving a bit of a gap at the ends. Have some lengths of kitchen string on hand. This part will be a bit messy and you'll wonder how you're going to roll it up. Roll the whole thing so you end up with log shape. I find it easier to roll and then tie one end together then tie another piece of string a bit further along. Don't worry it does all come together. You'll end up with about 6-7 pieces of string around it.
Lightly oil a roasting dish, place the chicken in and drizzle with a little more oil. Over the top wrap all the pieces of proscuitto so the whole chicken is covered.
Bake in a moderately hot oven for about 45-50 mins. Remove from the oven and let it rest for 10 mins before slicing.
Proscuitto wrapped Chicken with two Mushroom stuffing