Homer: Are you saying you're never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Ham?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Pork chops?
Lisa: Dad, those all come from the same animal.
Homer: Heh heh heh. Ooh, yeah, right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.
So... I love a good pork tenderloin. I love a good pork kebab. I love a good thinly sliced pork. I love pork chops. I love bacon. I love sausage.
But I hate ham.
I do like a honey baked ham, or, at least, the sweet, crunchy exterior of it. The interior, not as much.
But, I had something... a feeling... a wanting... Chicken Cordon Bleu. Chicken? Great. Cheese? Awesome! Crispy outsides? Love it.
Ham? ...
So, why not find a way to make it better? And by better, I mean less ham, but still chicken-y, cheesey goodnees. The wife-unit doesn't like swiss, the traditional filling of a Chicken Cordon Bleu, so we need to swap that out.
I don't like ham, so we need to swap that out.
And it's hot out, so we are going to cook on the grill, where breading doesn't necessarily work quite well, so we need to swap that out too.
Let's start with cheese.
Gouda. Gouda is good. We like gouda. Oh, look, there in the petite fromage bin. That's a lovely bit of gouda.
Hmm. No lomo. No Iberian or Serrano jamon. There's some nice prosciutto. How about six slices of that.
And, over to the butcher section, a nice package of a couple boneless, skinless breasts.
Quick, to the SMART CAR! To Home! To the GRILL!
You might be wondering, by this point, where in the blue blazes the recipe is.
Well, honestly, there isn't one. I made it up as I went along. So, here's the 'recipe':
- Slice the cheese nice and thin.
- Then, plop the chicken down on the cutting board, put a hand down on top of the breast and using a big ol' chef's knife, slice the breast in half almost all the way through, basically, imagine that you want to fold it open like a book.
- And then, no surprise really, fold it open like a book.
- Lay the thinly sliced cheese down on each side, then, atop the cheese, lay the prosciutto.
- Fold shut, stick some toothpicks in so it stays shut and grill until cooked.
- Then... eat.
You can swap out the cheese for some other cheese product.
You can swap out the prosciutto for some other pork product (Bacon? Soprasetta? Pancetta?)
And that's it. Seriously.
Now, what's really funny is that, after grilling, it looked like an awesome low carb version of a Monte Cristo sandwich. No, really. Even tho the pictures don't show it, the chicken just looked like toasted bread.
Personally, I wanted more porky taste. Patricia thought it was perfect. Next time, I'd try cheddar. And bacon. Or... well, really, the pig is our oyster.
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