I can officially say that I’m starting to feel like Julia Child or  Betty Crocker. Want a good present for me, it’s actually simple these days. Although my mother would disagree on that, one thing that I can always use is more cookbooks and more utensils (food tools). Ironically being a geek and cooking are not that far apart. Look at folks like Kevin Rose, the creator of Digg, he loves to cook and his girlfriend writes a great food blog.

Today I want to share with you an amazing dish–vegetarians be warned, this is a lot of meat–that I found in my Gordon Ramsay’s Healthy Appetite cookbook. And yes I have about 10 recipes bookmarked in this book so far. The dish I tried is stuffed chicken breast wrapped in sage and prosciutto.

What you need:

• 2 Chicken Breasts
• 4 Sage leaves
• 4 large tbsp of Ricotta
• Sea Salt and Black Pepper
• 6 Prosciutto slices
• 2 tbsp of Olive Oil
• Pinch of Thyme

So the 1st thing you’ll want to do is make sure your chicken breast is thawed.  Then you’ll want to cut open the chicken breast like a book or like a butterfly. Then you want to chop up 2 of the sage leaves and mix that together with the ricotta, sea salt, pepper and thyme. Once you mix it all together in a bowl, divided it into 2 and spread it inside of chicken breasts.

You’ll then want to add the ricotta mixed to the chicken and fold them over again so it is inside. Then layout 3 slices for each chicken of the prosciutto to be wrapped around the chicken breasts. Make sure to add the remaining sage leaves into the wrap. Are you still with me?

It is probably a good idea to make sure that the prosciutto is tightly wrapped around the chicken. Make sure it is a good bundle so that it doesn’t come apart well your pan frying.

Oh you guessed it! Yes, pan frying is the next thing you have to do to these things. Although the recipe I have says you should put them in the fridge for 2 hours to firm them up. I did not do this and it turned out perfectly fine. You’ll want to heat up at pan or skillet to medium-high heat and then add the olive oil before adding the chicken wrap. At the same time you’re doing this turn on your oven to 350° and put a roasting pan inside.

When you placed the chicken wraps inside the pan fry them for 2 min. on each side just enough to firm up the prosciutto and cook the outside of the chicken. Once you’ve done that it is now time to add it to the oven. Place the chicken wraps in the center of the oven and continue to cook for 12 to 15 min. or until there’s no longer a threat for salmonella. Yes I went there.

Apparently while in the oven these chickens get tired. When you remove them from the oven, let them rest. Cover them in tinfoil for 10 min. and then serve. I didn’t have anything with mine, but mashed potatoes or some greens would go well with this meal.

For next time. Although I thoroughly enjoyed this meal and it was a lot of fun to cook, I probably won’t do it with the Sage again. While sitting here writing this I was thinking how great a bit of pesto or basil would go with the ricotta. I think I’m going to try that next time.

Please try it and let me know how it works out. If you think I did something wrong, I’d love to hear your feedback. No seriously.