Roasted Red Pepper Stuffed Chicken

By now you should know (if you clicked on the link I gave you) I was featured in a local Austin magazine. Thank you to Ujima for featuring me this month and introducing me to the larger Austin community. I don’t know what will come of this, only God knows, but I really appreciate them for giving me a chance to shine. This Ujima project is a wonderful endeavor that is great for the Austin community…more specifically the Black community. We ALL need to support them!


The following dish is something I came up with several years ago while living in Houston. My wife had decided to do Mary Kay on the side and she had her coming out party. Since this was for my wife I couldn’t let her have crappy food for her event. About 20 to 30 women were there to support her and since it was around dinnertime, I decided to do a meal instead of appetizers. Also, around this time I started thinking about catering and wanted to try some of my dishes out on people outside of family. The coming out party was a hit. The ladies all had a great time and my wife sold quite a bit of product. To this day, I still get requests for this dish. In fact, our friend in Houston, the one who threatened me for not posting regularly, specifically requested I post about my stuffed chicken.

The dish is fairly easy to make but will require you getting your hands a little dirty. The end result will be great and well worth it.

Roasted Red pepper Stuffed Chicken Breast with Roasted Red Pepper Cream Sauce


2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

½ cup roasted red peppers, diced

½ cup Parmesan cheese

Spinach

Salt

Black pepper

Paprika

Olive oil

Preheat oven to 350 F.


First, pound each piece of chicken in a Ziploc bag to flatten it. The bag will ensure the chicken doesn’t splatter while you pound it out…plus, it makes it easier to clean up. Pound until it’s evenly flat then salt and pepper both sides of the chicken.

In a bowl, mix together diced roasted red peppers, parmesan cheese, black pepper, and paprika. If you prefer, mix in the spinach (chopped first). I don’t do that, I add the spinach leaves on top of the mixture...but we’ll get there. Lay the chicken breast skin side down, then take the red pepper mix and spread evenly across the breast.

Place the spinach leaves and lay it on top of the mix.

Finally, roll the chicken up making sure it stays tight. To keep it in place you can use a tooth pick or a skewer stick. Set it aside and do the same thing for the other chicken breast.

 Heat a pan with olive oil on medium heat. Once the oil is hot (not too hot that it smokes put the chicken in seam side down first. This will brown and seal it…cook for about three minutes. Rotate the chicken breast until all of the sides are brown.

Once done put the chicken on a cookie sheet and place it in the oven for 20 minutes. While that’s in the oven, prepare the sauce.

Roasted Red Pepper Cream Sauce


½ Roasted red peppers

1 cup of heavy cream

½ cup chicken stock

Juice from ½ of a lemon

Lemon zest

½ cup White wine

1 garlic clove, minced

Cayenne pepper

Using the same pan that you cooked the chicken in, add about a tablespoon of olive oil. If you have some in there already pour it out. Your just want enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Add the minced garlic, but make sure it doesn’t brown. If you have any spinach left in the pan (after cooking the chicken), remove it. Add the white wine to deglaze the pan. For those who don’t believe that alcohol cooks out when heated, you can use water to deglaze the pan. When you deglaze, you are basically taking the flavors that are stuck to the bottom of your pan and making it a part of your sauce or dish. To help the wine or water out, you can use a spoon or whisk to loosen the food from the bottom of the pan.  Once you have deglazed the pan, allow the volume of the liquid in the pan to reduce by half, and then add the chicken stock. Let the chicken stock reduce to half its original volume as well. This reduction allows the flavors to concentrate. Add the peppers, lemon juice and lemon zest to the pan.

Stir and finally, add the heavy cream. Again, reduce the sauce until it has a nice coat on the back of a spoon.

Depending on how much heat you want to your sauce, add cayenne pepper to your likeness. Watch out for the salt because most stocks already have salt in them so you may not need to add salt to your sauce. Just taste it…it’s always better to under salt in the beginning and add it later. If it needs salt after you taste it, add it last and be careful. At this point the sauce should be simmering and the chicken should be ready to come out of the oven. Use a meat thermometer to check the internal temperature in the chicken. It should read 165F.

If it doesn’t put it back the oven for an additional 10 minutes. Check the temperature again. Once the chicken is to temp, you can be confident that it’s done. Allow it to rest for about seven minutes before you cut it. This allows all the juices to flow back through the meat.


I used linguine for my pasta, but you can use whatever you want. I’m not going to tell you how to cook it here. You can use whole wheat pasta, multigrain, or white pasta, etc. or you could eat this with rice…. Just use the direction on the package it comes in.


After the chicken has rested, the sauce is coating the spoon, and the pasta is done, it will be time to plate. Cut the chicken into about four pieces. Add the pasta, chicken, and whatever vegetable you choose, and ladle the sauce over the chicken and the pasta.

In the pictures, I used broccoli as the vegetable. I’m assuming everyone knows how to cook it…if you need those instructions, let me know.

In my opinion this dish is fairly easy to make and I sincerely hope you can duplicate the recipe to your liking. Let me know if you make it and how it comes out. Let me know if you need any help. You can always email me at randalharrington@yahoo.com.


From Chef Randal-- this how you can add a touch of gourmet to your everyday.

Photos by Nikesha Harrington