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Sliced chicken ballotine filled with minced meat and pistachios served with roasted apples on a white plate.

Chicken Ballotine

A good roast doesn’t need to be complicated. This Chicken Ballotine is filled with sausage, prosciutto, and pistachios, bringing warmth and comfort to any meal.

Course: Main
Cuisine: French, Italian
Prep Time: 1 hour
Cook Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours 15 minutes
Author: Manuela Zangara

Ingredients

Chicken and Stuffing

  • 1 whole chicken – 1.5 to 1.8 kg – 3.3 to 4 lbs
  • 150 g – 5.3 oz minced beef or veal
  • 150 g – 5.3 oz Italian pork sausage – casing removed
  • 60 g – 2 oz prosciutto – sliced
  • 60 g – 2 oz mortadella – sliced
  • 50 g – 1.75 oz Parmigiano Reggiano – finely grated
  • 1 egg
  • 25 ml – 0.9 oz Marsala wine OR brandy
  • 35 g – 1.25 oz pistachios
  • 15 g – 0.5 oz sandwich bread
  • 1 pinch nutmeg
  • Salt and pepper – to taste

For Roasting

  • 2 garlic cloves
  • 2 rosemary sprigs
  • 4 sage leaves
  • 2 bay leaves
  • ½ tbsp garlic powder
  • ½ tbsp paprika
  • 100 ml – 3.5 oz white wine
  • 1 chicken stock cube
  • 40 ml – 1.4 oz water
  • 2 red apples – cored and sliced into 6 or 8 pieces
  • Extra virgin olive oil – for brushing
  • Ground pepper and salt – to taste

Instructions

Chicken and Stuffing

  1. Soak the bread with Marsala and then mix it with all the other ingredients apart from the prosciutto and mortadella slices.
    Mixing bread, pistachios, prosciutto, and egg for the chicken ballotine filling.
  2. Keep the stuffing in the fridge while deboning the chicken.

  3. Debone the chicken following the instructions in How to Debone a Chicken.

    Note: The chicken should look smooth and flat once deboned, as shown in the photos below.

    Chicken being deboned and flattened before stuffing.

  4. Gently flatten the chicken out with a meat mallet.

  5. Season with salt and pepper.
  6. Put the prosciutto slices on the open chicken. Spread the stuffing evenly across the surface (make sure to spoon some filling into the thighs so they cook evenly). Layer the mortadella slices on top.

  7. Close the chicken and tie it up with butcher’s twine (as shown in Jacques Pépin’s Chicken Ballotine video.

    Deboned chicken layered with prosciutto, filling, and mortadella before rolling.

Roasting

  1. Put the ballotine in an oven tray and rub it with the ground pepper, paprika, and garlic powder.

  2. Drizzle with the extra virgin olive oil.

  3. Put the garlic cloves, bay leaves, rosemary, and sage in the tray.

  4. Roast in a preheated oven at 230°C – 445°F for the first 15 minutes, then add in the white wine, water, and crumbled stock cube.

  5. Decrease the temperature to 200°C – 390°F and roast for 1 hour, or until it reaches an internal temperature of 74°C – 165°F (the juices should run clear when you pierce the chicken).

    Chicken ballotine tied and roasted with wine, herbs, and apples in a baking pan.

  6. Add the sliced apples 15 to 20 minutes before the chicken is ready.

    Fresh apple wedges prepared for roasting with the chicken ballotine.
  7. Let the ballotine rest for approximately 20 minutes, covered loosely in foil, before slicing and serving it with the apples and sauce.