Parmesan Chicken Breasts with Crispy Posh Ham (Prosciutto) Courtesy of Jamie Oliver

Sunday, December 26th, 2010 at 6:06 pm

Earlier this year Paula and I each brought ourselves an Apple iPad and we just love them. There are so many applications available and one of the best recipe manager apps we have found is ‘Paprika’.

This app allows you to create your own recipes, save recipes from any along with the photo, and then you can organize your recipes to suit yourself.

Now when you ready to cook, you simply bring up your recipe and read it right from your iPad and the best part is that the Paprika app doesn’t close. This is an excellent feature when you have stuff all over your hands, it means you won’t get your iPad mucky. It’s Brilliant.

Another excellent feature about the iPad is that you can download podcasts. And being an avid collector of recipes I downloaded both Jamie Oliver and Nigella podcasts.

One of Jamie Oliver’s podcasts if a recipe for Parmesan Chicken Breasts with Crispy Posh Ham (Prosciutto). Talk about tasty. And it is so quick and easy that it has quickly become a firm favorite. And Jamie has a wide range of cookbooks with fantastic recipes for all tastes.

So here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

30 g Parmesan cheese
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
2 skinless chicken breasts
freshly ground black pepper
1 lemon ( I use lime simply because I prefer the flavor)
6 slices of prosciutto
Olive Oil

Method:

Put the chicken breasts between some sheets of plastic wrap and beat until they are about 1cm thick.
Carefully score the underside of the chicken breasts in a criss cross pattern with a small knife
Season with a little pepper ( you won’t need any salt as the prosciutto adds enough salty flavor)
Lay the chicken breasts next to each other and sprinkle over most of the thyme leaves
Grate a little lime or lemon zest over them and then sprinkle with the Parmesan
Lay 3 prosciutto slices on each chicken breast overlapping them slightly. ( I have had to vary the number of slices depending on the size of the chicken breast), you want the prosciutto to hold in the cheese.
Drizzle with a little olive oil and sprinkle with the remaining Thyme leaves.

To Cook the Chicken

Heat a frying pan over medium heat
Carefully transfer the chicken, breasts, proscuitto side down, into the pan. This can be tricky so I leave the chicken on the clingfilm to make it easier.
Cook for 3 – 4 minutes on each side, turning halfway through, giving the ham side an extra 30 seconds to crisp up.

You can serve the chicken whole or cut into thick slices and piled on a plate. I like to serve the Parmesan Chicken with steamed vegetables but you can serve with a nice crunchy salad or whatever you have on hand as an accompaniment.

This dish is delicious. Thank you Jamie Oliver.

Parmesan Chicken Breasts USA Version (Imperial)
Parmesan Chicken Breasts UK Version (metric)

Here are the steps by photo: