Chicken Spedini

For Em's birthday, I made one of her favorite dishes ... Chicken Spedini. The dish was more involved than some, but WELL worth the extra effort. This recipe is an approximation of what I did for that meal, inspired by suggestions from Em's mom and random recipes I found online. I didn't measure anything; amounts are my best guesses. This recipe makes 4 pieces (we ate 3 w/ pasta and had one leftover).

Ingredients

• 4 chicken cutlets or thin breasts
• Juice of 3 medium lemons
  
• 1/2 cp seasoned bread crumbs
• 1/2 can diced tomatoes in juice
• 1 egg, hard boiled and diced
  
• 1/3 cp grated parmigiana cheese
• 1 tbsp misc Italian herbs (basil, oregano, etc)
• 1 tbsp sugar
  
• 3+ cloves of garlic diced
• 1/2 small or medium onion diced
  
• 2 tbsp butter
• olive oil
• salt and pepper
  

Steps

1. Pound chicken into thin pieces <1/2">
2. Mix breadcrumbs, cheese, herbs, salt and pepper, sugar together
3. Lightly coat chicken in breadcrumb mixture. Knock off excess.
4. In a small pan sauté the onion and garlic in a small amount of olive oil until softened.
5. Add onion/garlic/oil mixture to remaining breadcrumb mixture along with tomatoes, egg, and a small amount of the lemon juice. Mix adding enough of the tomato juice to form a thick filling
6. In a medium sized baking dish, add just a bit of olive oil and swish to coat the bottom.
7. For each piece of chicken, place a small ball of the filling mixture in the center and fold the ends around, wrapping the filling in the chicken. Place end side down into baking dish.
8. In the same sauté pay you used before, over medium-low heat melt the butter and 2 tablespoons of olive oil along with a another clove (or more) of minced garlic. When the butter and oil start to sizzle, add the remaining lemon juice and stir to combine.
9. Spoon the butter-oil-garlic-lemon mixture over the chicken.
10. Cover the baking dish with foil and bake in a pre-heated 375 degree oven for 20 minutes.
11. Remove foil and bake for 10-15 minutes more.
12. Serve over angel hair pasta w/ the drippings and lemon/oil mixture that is left in the pan

Thoughts

This dish turned much better than I was anticipating. I always have some anxiety when I make a dish that Em has had growing up b/c there is no way it can compare to what her mother and grandmother can make.

The chicken was very moist, the filling (or gonza as Em's family calls it) was delicious, the lemon wasn't overpowering, and the pasta coated in the butter/oil/garlic/lemon mixture was yummy. Admittedly, I ended up making more of the sauce and spooned it over the chicken when I was removing the foil. Also, I finished them for the last 5 minutes or right under the broiler trying to get them to brown up a bit, but they turned out great and not overdone.

I was initially a little skeptical of how the filling was going to turn out (it ends up being very moist) w/ the egg, but the flavor was great. We ended up with extra. If this happens to you, just put it in the baking dish and enjoy. Tonight I am going to try and fry up the last bit of filling we have in a pseudo-meatball which I can't imagine will taste bad.

Photos