Sunday Supper: Food and Wine Pairing of the Week

Before we begin this week’s Sunday Supper entry, first, let us apologize.

This time of year is crazy-busy for us, as we’re sure it is for you, and we’ve been negligent as of late – seriously, totally, utterly disorganized, even – in planning our dinners. It’s no way for a foodie and wino to behave, and we’re sorry. In the future we will do our very best to pull up our socks.

So once again, this week’s dinner is a scrounge about from what was in the fridge: left over proscuitto from a wine tasting with clients, organic chicken breasts that always seem to find their way into the grocery cart just because of their super easy flexibility, left over blue cheese from another tasting earlier in the week.

Racing in from a packed day, and starving (do you sense a theme here?), dinner needed to be on the table – and fast. So, remembering the basics of a recipe that we enjoyed a few years ago, we pulled said ingredients from the fridge, and got down to work.

Blue cheese stuffed chicken wrapped in proscuitto

Serves 4

What you Need:

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, about 6 ounces each
• 6-8 ounces blue cheese (we used Ermite, but any will do)
• Thinly sliced proscuitto (you will need to wrap the breast, so probably about 8 slices, but use your judgement)
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 cup good quality chicken stock
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

How you do it:

1. With a sharp knife, make a horizontal slit into the side of the thickest part of the breast, being careful not to cut through the meat. You want to create a pocket for the cheese.
2. Stuff the pocket with an ounce or so of blue cheese, again being careful not to rip the meat.
3. Press the pocket closed so the cheese is snuggly inside
4. Pepper the outside of the raw, stuffed chicken breast. You can use salt, if necessary, but we don’t as he proscuitto and cheese are salty enough.
5. Wrap the proscuitto slice tightly around the chicken. Depending on size of both the chicken and proscuitto, this could take one or two slices.
6. Set an oven to 425
7. Warm oil in an oven-proof, deep saute pan over medium heat
8. When pan is hot add proscuitto wrapped chicken and sear for about 3-4 minutes per side, being careful not to rip the proscuitto when flipping it over
9. Put the pan in the oven for about 15-20 minutes until chicken is cooked through
10. Remove pan from oven (the handle will be hot)
11. Place chicken breasts on a plate (some will have cheese oozing from them) and place hot pan on a burner over medium heat
12. Pour in chicken stock and balsamic vinegar, scraping up brown bits and cheese from the bottom
13. Let liquid reduce and thicken to about 2/3 of a cup
14. Pour sauce over chicken and serve. We served it over sauteed mushroom and garlic with lemon-thyme green beans

The Wine Sisters’ Wine Pairing

This dish loans itself really well to red wine, and a Barbera or Dolcetto would be a nice pick here. However, it’s been so gloriously warm over the past week, we thought a chilled, thirst quenching white would go a long way and opted for an Ontario Riesling.

Thirty Bench Riesling, VQA Beamsville Bench, Niagara Peninsula, 2012
$18 Vintages 24133
Riesling is a focus of Thirty Bench, and this lip-smacking white wine is a delight to drink. Moderately off dry with flavours of citrus, tart green apple and grapefruit, the pin point acidity offers mouthwatering freshness.

How Did the Pairing Work?

We liked it. Again, like we said last week, you can’t really go wrong with Riesling, but the slightly off dry, fruit-forward flavours of the wine worked tempered the saltiness of the cheese and proscuitto. And the focused acid of the wine cut through the richness of the meat, cheese and sauce.