Well, Hanz's recap was pretty amusing to read, it partially could be because I was watching him over my shoulder through the competition. It really was quite a battle, and I am honored to have won this challenge. There were some amazing aromas in the house and I was pretty concerned...especially since they weren't aromas coming from my prep area!! I only had a bite of Hanz's lamb, it had a good flavor and everything else (except the fish...which I didn't see) looked delicious!!
When I saw that sage won (really!? We didn't expect it!), there was definitely a little panic going through my mind. Hanz had suggested sage, and I'd never cooked with it before. Honestly, I couldn't even remember what it smelled or tasted like! I figured I'd probably do a chicken dish, because lamb or fish were not things I've ever cooked before. I'd done a little research the night before the challenge wrote down some key ingredients, and planned to fly by the seat of my pants the next day.
When we got to HEB, we each grabbed a cart and went our separate ways. I first went into the fresh vegetable area and found packets of fresh sage. Grabbed a sweet onion and tomato and headed towards the meat counter. I hadn't completely decided what meat I was going to cook, but when I saw the prices my brain said "go for chicken!" I picked up some boneless-skinless chicken breasts and headed towards the cheese. After scavenging for a bit, I came upon some parmigiano reggiano. I headed down the spice aisle and grabbed dried sage, ran into Hanz, and went on my merry little way.
Next up was bacon! I knew I wanted bacon that wasn't too fatty and wasn't thinly sliced. I then headed to the dairy area, grabbed some cream cheese and salted butter. At that point I realized I forgot garlic, ran back to the veggie area and grabbed some, and picked up a package of frozen chopped spinach.
When we got home, it was time to get down to business. I picked my spot, laid out my ingredients and started butterflying the chicken breasts. Once each one was butterflied, I covered it in saran wrap and started pounding with a small frying pan. The next step was to make the filling!
For the filling I used the following: 1 package of cream cheese, a handful of chopped spinach, 1 crushed clove, 8 leaves of sage (chop FINELY, I didn't chop well enough and there were definite pockets of too much sage in the final product), and about a 1/3 cup of finely chopped sweet onion. Mix in a bowl and place about 1/3 cup (depending on the size of your chicken) of the mixture on half of each piece of chicken. Fold the other side of chicken over and seal with toothpicks.Wrap with 2-3 pieces of bacon and use the toothpicks to "hook" it onto the meat. Bake on baking sheet at 350F for 30 minutes, turn up to 375 for 10 minutes, and 400 for 5 minutes. Pull out of oven and top with a little parmigiano reggiano.
The side-dish Hanz was talking about it a play on something my mother made growing up; spaghetti pie. Boil some water and throw in a handful of capellini noodles, near the end of the cooking time drop in the rest of your spinach. Drain and set aside. In a mixing bowl add 2 eggs, 1/2 cup parmigiano reggiano, salt, pepper, minced sage, and minced onion. Mix. Add in some of the spaghetti/spinach mixture and coat evenly. Butter rammekins, and put a serving size of the spagheti in each rammekin. Sprinkle with a little dried sage and bake for 20 minutes (the last 20 minutes the chicken is baking), remove from oven and top with a sprinkle of parmigiano reggiano.
My only recommendation would be to take the individual portions of baked spaghetti out of the rammekins after baking and place on plate. It was hard to eat without doing that & the guys weren't going to use a knife to cut it up...
Pictures coming soon :)
So when are you going to post my Judge intro?
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