Now, I’m gonna prepare for you a ahm… a is actually a new menu item that we have in the restaurant, it’s a organic stuffed chicken breast. Now, what it’s stuffed with, it’s stuffed with serrano ham and a cheddar cheese. Now, what’s kinda unique about these two items, is one, the Serrano ham. If you’re not familiar with Serrano ham, it’s a Spanish version of prosciutto, okay, it’s very, it’s, it’s very unique flavor, it’s a cured ham, it’s a salt, it’s a salt and air dried cured ham. And it just really has really robust flavor. The cheese that we’re stuffing this with, I’m, I love this cheese, and what it is, is actually a very sharp white cheddar cheese that’s been soaked in cabernet wine. So, when you eat this, you’ve got the freshness of the chicken, you kind a got the saltiness of the ham and then you got a really, you’ve got the richness of the cheese with a nice red wine finish. I’m, I’m thinking that you’re gonna love this. So, what are gonna do, we get, what we gonna do first, we’re gonna get started with the chicken so we can get those in the oven and get those roasted. So, to start with it, we have a chicken breast here that we’ve pounded out, boneless, skinless, okay, and what, and first what we’re going to do, we’re gonna salt and pepper it, first of all. Now, you don’t wanna go crazy on the salt, because like I said, that ham is a little bit on the salty side, it’s not gonna be overpowering salty, but if you, if you over salt the chicken and then eventually, you know, once you start layering the salt and stuffs like that, yeah, it’s gonna get little bit salty. Now, this is where I go little bit heavy on the black pepper, because, here we have such a robust flavor with the ham and the cheese, and the black pepper would just marry perfectly with it, so we’re gonna go little bit heavy on the pepper. And for what with do at this, is very simple, we’re just gonna lay this ham down.
Unknown Female: And what is the name above this?
Bradley: It’s a Serrano ham. Then we’ll gonna add the cheese now, now, if you can, if you can’t find this particular type of cheese and you want to go with the cheddar cheese or what not, definitely go with that, go with the white sharp cheddar, that’s where you gonna get your best flavor. Now, you can take this same cheddar and do it like we do at the restaurant and you can soak it yourself. What we do is we buy the cheddar blocks, we cut it, cut them in smaller blocks, we totally put them in cabernet wine and let them sit in the cabernet wine for three days, and it gets this really, as you can see, as you can tell gets this really purple color around there. And, this, like I said, this is something I’m a very, I’m very big into cheeses and the flavors of cheeses, and I’m very big into the flavors of wine and things like that. So, I ask myself how can I marry the two, well I just soak, I’ll soak this cheddar in this cabernet and see how it turns out, and once you try it, I think you’ll really, really enjoy it. It’s something that I, I’ve come up with, my general manager, was like, oh man we should package that and sell it, the cheese is so good. So, gonna add just a little bit of cheese and like I said, I’ve grate it for a simple fact that when it, when it melts, it, it melts a little bit more evenly when it grates, so. And then it’s very easy from there, we just take this and roll it up, and that’s it, okay. So what we gonna do, we got a pan going here, and what you want to start off with, you want to start off with a hot pan. I mean I can’t emphasize how much it’s important to start off with a hot pan. We’ll gonna add a little bit of olive oil, if you have a non stick pan, all the better, but if you don’t, if you don’t have a non stick pan, then I’ll really suggest the pan really, really hot, because you don’t want the chicken to stick. Now, if you notice I lay the ham down first and put the, and then put the cheese on top of that, and that’s actually for a reason. When you lay the ham down first, and then, and then the cheese and you roll it up, then the cheese is encase in ham and in chicken, so, it’s not gonna ooze out, and it’s not gonna come out the ends and stuff like that. it’s gonna stay intact. So, when we cut it, it’ll be nice and perfect and, and that’s when the cheese will start to coming out, so. So, what I’ve done here, where I had rolled up a few. Now you can do one of two things, in the restaurant, we tie them, it’s not, I’m gonna tell you that it’s not a necessity to tie them, because you can do it without them, but like I said for the restaurant it’s such an intense presentation that we, we like to tie them, just to keep them all intact. Again, lightly salted, lightly pepper, and we’re ready to go into the, we’re ready to go into the pan. Now this, have actually the bone on them. So, but, I wanted do both of them, just for kinda presentation purposes. And we’ll put this one in there right at the end. Again, let this sear, let this get a nice crust all the way around them, coz what you’re doing, you’re basically sealing in the ham and the cheese and things like that, so, when we go to finish this in the 400 degree oven, it’s gonna be nice and brown and it’s gonna cook nice and even, and that’s exactly what we want. And, and again, I can’t emphasize about how, how important it is to start with a hot pan, because if you don’t start with a hot pan, it’s gonna take you a while, and it’s not gonna caramelize, and it’s not gonna sear the way you want it to do. Now, the one fact thing about the strings and you’ll, and you watch me when I gonna cut them for you, it’s not paying to take them off, but you know what, the presentation and they really hold everything inside it, it’s phenomenal. And what that is, that’s just putting the butchers twine around it and just tying it, like you tie your shoe or anything else. Alright, we’re getting some nice color on these. And we only wanna do, we wanna sear them all the way around, then we’ll gonna finish them in a 400 degree oven, and that would take roughly about 8 minutes to finish up. so what I’m gonna do for you now, is I’m gonna, we’ll gonna start the sauce. Now, you have to start the sauce in two phases. That’s why I have these two pots out here. first of all, we have to make a syrup, okay. The syrup is made out of red wine vinegar and sugar, okay. That’s gonna be the sweetness and the tartness of the sauce. So, what we’re gonna do, we’re gonna start in this pan with a little bit of red wine vinegar, little bit of sugar as well. You actually wanna go equal part sugar and vinegar. And we’ll just gonna let that kinda get into a syrup type of consistency. For this end, we’re gonna start shallots. We wanna, you wanna make the pan nice and hot for this, little bit of olive oil. Let’s check the bottom of these, see how they’re coming along, oh, those, those are coming along nicely. And we’ll gonna go and finish this in the oven, just take the whole pan and all of it go right in the oven. So if you’re gonna do that, you wanna be careful about using a pan with a plastic handle, not wanna really do that, but it happens. So, we’re gonna turn that down. Switch this cutting board around since we use some chicken. Now what we’re gonna do is finish up the sauce. We’re gonna take our shallots, this is a very shallot intensive sauce, we’re just nice and Julian this, and then we’re gonna go into our pan with this. We’re gonna give this a nice sauté. Excellent, those will gonna look good. now, as you could see, this is starting to get kinda syrupy, and that’s exactly what we want, right there. we’re gonna let that reduce, just a little bit more, it needs to get a little bit more of a syrupy consistency. What, you wanna sauté the shallots until they’re not really caramelize but they’re translucent. Meaning that they’re just gonna start to cook, they’re just gonna start to lose their color, all the flavors are gonna start to come out of them, and things like that. okay, so, our red wine and sugar mixture is where it needs to be, so we’re just gonna turn that one off, and just let that one be. So now we’ll going to add the maker’s mark, now, one of your, one of your question is, well can you use any type of bourbon. Yes and no, maker’s mark has a phenomenal weight of sugar in it, and that’s actually why we used the maker’s mark because of the sugar content, it’s a lot higher than a lot of other bourbon, so, just take that into consideration when you’re making the sauce, if you don’t, if you wanted a little bit less sweeter, that’s fine, absolutely, but, I mean, maker’s mark itself is just got a great bourbon flavor. Now, I’m sure everybody knows how much alcohol bourbon has in it, so, so be careful, because sometimes they will flame up. now, if you’re making it in a pan like this, a lot of times it’s not gonna flame up, because the sides are protected. And a lot of people say, oh you want, you wanted it to flame up, and stuffs like that, so you can cook away the alcohol, yeah, but you know what, you don’t really want to do that with maker’s mark, because once it boils down, it’s gonna, it’s, it’s gonna, the alcohol actually gonna evaporate out, and you, you’re just gonna be left with that really nice flavor, so, you wanna be careful about actually how much flame you actually put on it. coz you don’t want to burn off all the flavor. Alright, and then from there, we’re gonna add our syrup mixture, alright, this is gonna look nice. It’s actually starting to smell really nice, starting to smell a little bit sweet, you can start to smell the maker’s mark as well. And then we’ll gonna add our veal stock, and this is a veal stock that’s been reduced probably about by half, just to start to, just to tighten it up, just to give it a little bit of body. So, we’ll gonna add that into here. now, once all the ingredients is in there, you, you, you just gonna let that reduce, you’re gonna bring it up to a boil, drop it down to a simmer and let it reduce. You don’t want to tighten it up with cornstarch, you don’t want to add rue to it, you don’t wanna add any of that kind of stuff to it. just, just let it naturally thicken up. plus you’re not looking for really thick sauce, you’re looking for something that’s just kinda light. And something that’s on the plate so where, when you taste the chicken and you taste the cheese and you taste the ham and things like that, you’ll really gonna, what the, what the sauce is gonna do is just gonna enhance it all. You know, there’s so many places out there that I feel over sauce food, you know, but if you have a high quality piece of protein and you’re really looking to highlight those flavors and things like that, then you don’t need a lot of sauce to mask it up. but at the same time, a little bit of sauce just to kinda break the flavors is always a good thing as well, so, we’ll just gonna let that come up, and we’ll gonna salt this at the very end. We’re gonna add salt and pepper right at the very end because you don’t want, you don’t want to salt it and then reduce it, because as you reduce, the salt’s gonna concentrate as well, which in turn sometimes will make it a little bit salty. So, what we’ll gonna do now is checking our chickens here, alright, these are coming along very nice. Couple more minutes on those, and those will be ready to go. Alright. Looks like our sauce’s just not coming up to a boil, so I’ll just wanna drop that down. So, I think our sauce is just about there actually. Again, you don’t really wanna make it too thick, but you don’t really wanna make it too thin. You just wanna make it like a nice giu, and I think this is it. so what we’re gonna do, we’ll gonna salt and pepper it. little bit of black pepper. Little bit of koshere salt. Let me give this just a taste test. I think you’ll like that. I think it’s there. so we’re going ahead and pull that off. and we’re gonna check on our chickens one more time coz I believe those are about ready to go. Yup, I think they’re there. Now, if, if you’re asking, well how can we tell if they’re done by touching them, it’s the firmness of the meat is what we’re looking for. It’s how firm it is. Chicken is a very soft, textured raw item, once it’s cook, it gets very firm and very hard. So, along with some practice, of course, you can pretty much gage on when chicken is done by the feel of it, without having to cut into it and things like that, and this one, we’re ready to go on these. We’re just gonna let that cook in the pan just a minute more, while we get ready. Alrighty, I think we’re ready to go. Now, what you wanna do, chicken is very similar to beef, I’m sure everybody’s heard of, let the beef rest, let it rest and do this or what not, chicken is pretty much the same way, because right now, inside it, basically the juices of the ham the chicken and everything and they’re boiling right now. so what, so what we’re gonna do we’re just gonna allow that to rest just for a minute and what that does is just calms down the juices so when you cut into it, all the juice stays inside the chicken and not run out all over the table. You know, a lot of people are, they’ll cut into it right afterwards and they’ll, and you know, they’ll see all the juice on the cutting board or what not, and they’ll like, oh wow I did this right look how juicy it is, well, yeah, it was juicy, but now all your juice is on your cutting board and things like that, so, you know, it’s okay to let that rest just for a minute. And, if you tie it, which these are tied, you, you’re gonna have that minute, because you get to play with this and try to get it untied, so. This is the fun part, but, just put your knife underneath it, it is hot, unwrap it. And you wanna make sure to get rid of the strings, you don’t want to serve the strings to your friends or family, but if they do, just tell them, hey you know, don’t worry about it you don’t have to pay extra for the strings, so it’s okay, they’re free too. We’ll save that. So, see, you get this nice cheesy stuffed chicken, and that’s exactly what we’re looking for. I mean, that is, that is beautiful right there. What do you think? I mean it’s perfectly stuffed, everything’s intact. And of course, you can serve this with anything, you know, and in my opinion, right there, you don’t need anything, but, you know, if you wanna serve it with ahm… potatoes, you wanna serve it with vegetables, by all means do so. Just gonna lay a little bit of that sauce right over the top. You could either strain the shallots out, but I would definitely recommend keeping them in, and there you have it, stuffed chicken breast with Serrano ham and maker’s mark sauce. Thank you very much.
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