Chicken Cordon Blu........

When I was a little girl my dad used to cook large meals for our family at holidays and one of my favorite recipes was his chicken cordon blu. This recipe is slightly more complicated than what I usually post up... but it is still simple enough if you want to make a delicious dinner for company one night. BON APPETITE!!


Ingredients: makes four servings... however if you have more chicken, then double the ingredients for the sauce which has an * next to it)
4 whole breasts
8 thin slices ham
8 thin slices white American cheese
8 whole Idaho potatoes
12 round toothpicks
2 tbl butter
6 tbl flour
2 tbl paprika
1 chicken bouillon cubes*
½ cup white wine*
1 tbl corn starch*
8 oz heavy whipping cream*


Prep:
~ In a bowl, mix the flour and paprika (pictured below #1)
~ Trim the chicken and then fillet the breasts but be sure not to slice all the way in half (pictured below #2)
~ Layer two slices of ham and two slices of cheese in the middle of the chicken (pictured below #3)
~ Roll the chicken (pictured below #4) then roll them in the flour/paprika bowl (#1) so they are coated 
~ Put THREE toothpicks in each breast so they are held together... ALWAYS use three per breast so that way you know you have only THREE for every breast that must be removed and no one will choke on a toothpick that was missed.
~ Melt butter in a LARGE skillet/frying pan (#5)
~ Place the coated, rolled chicken breasts in pan and brown on medium heat (#6) BE SURE TO ROTATE CHICKEN OFTEN
~ In another bowl put cooking wine and bouillon cube (or cubes if you are making two batches of sauce like pictured below in #7)
~ In another bowl put the heavy whipping cream and corn starch (#8)... but while cooking chicken and potatoes be sure to use a whisk and make sure there are no clumps of corn starch but that it was mixed thoroughly like in picture #12)
~ When the chicken is browned pretty even on all sides, add wine and bouillon cube to pan (#9)
~ Cook and continue rotating chicken often on medium heat and COVER the pan - do this for 30 MINUTES
~ Have cleaned potatoes in pot and begin boiling at this point (#10)
~ The wine should bubble and may even foam up, this is perfect just like in picture #11
~ Remove chicken from heat after the 30 minutes is up and put on platter, then be sure to SCRAPE the bottom and sides of pan VERY GOOD to get all the excess trimmings, this is the start of your sauce... (picture #13)
~ Remove toothpicks by using pliers, be sure to get all THREE toothpicks out of the breasts  (picture #14)
~ Cover chicken to stay warm until ready to serve, then turn up heat on sauce, add whipping cream/starch mixture (#15) STIR AND SCRAPE BOTTOM CONSTANTLY, cook for about 8 minutes, it may even bubble/boil like in picture #17
~ In between stirring, remove potatoes, and dice into quartered pieces (picture #16)
~ When sauce is done, be sure to scrape all sides in pan into the serving bowl - be sure it stays warm, it is only good warm. (#18)
~ Serve chicken and potatoes on plate with sauce covering the chicken and potatoes (picture #19) and ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!

** If you make more than four chicken breasts, not only should you double the sauce as instructed above, but be sure to consider that you need two slices of cheese and ham PER breast that you add to the meal, along with toothpicks & potatoes. Still only start with 6 tbl. of flour and 2 tbl. of paprika... unless you run out of it, then start with 3 tbl. of flour and 1 tbl. of paprika for extra coating. Don't do more than that because it will just get wasted. This dish seems slightly complicated, but it's hard to screw up if you follow the instructions properly. **

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