Chicken Ballotine filled with cold meats and pistachios... the Italian way!
Course
Main
Cuisine
French, Italian
Prep Time1hour
Cook Time1hour15minutes
Total Time2hours15minutes
AuthorManuela Zangara
Ingredients
Chicken and Stuffing
1whole chicken1.5 kg to 1.8 kg – 3.3 lbs. to 4 lbs.
150gms– 5.3 oz. mincebeef or veal
150gms– 5.3 oz. Italian pork sausagecasing removed
60gms– 2 oz. prosciuttosliced
60gms– 2 oz. mortadellasliced
50gms– 1.75 oz. Parmigiano Reggianofinely grated
1egg
25ml– 0.9 oz. Marsala wine or Brandy
35gms– 1.25 oz. pistachios
15gms– 0.5 oz. sandwich bread
1pinchnutmeg
Sale and Pepper to taste
Roasting
2garlic cloves
2rosemary sprigs
4sage leaves
2bay leaves
½tbspgarlic powder
½tbsppaprika
100ml– 3.5 oz. white wine
1chicken stock cube
40ml– 1.4 oz. water
2red applescored and sliced in 6 or 8 pieces
Extra virgin olive oil to brush
Ground pepper and salt to taste
Instructions
Chicken and Stuffing
Soak the bread with Marsala and then mix it with all the other ingredients apart from the prosciutto and mortadella slices.
Keep the stuffing in the fridge while deboning the chicken.
Debone the chicken following the instructions in this video.
And these photos:
Gently flatten the chicken out with a meat mallet.
Season with salt and pepper.
Put the prosciutto slices on the open chicken. Spread the stuffing (make sure to push some inside the thighs!). Put the mortadella slices on the top.
Close the chicken and tie it up with butcher’s twine (see the above video for instructions).
Roasting
Put the ballotine in an oven tray and rub it with the ground pepper, paprika and garlic powder.
Drizzle with the extra virgin olive oil.
Put the garlic cloves, bay leaves, rosemary and sage in the tray.
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.
Decrease the temperature to 200°C – 390°F and roast for 1 hour or until it reaches an internal temperature of 165°F – 74°C (or when the juices run clear when you pierce the chicken).
Add the sliced apples 15 to 20 minutes before the chicken is ready.
Let the ballotine rest for approximately 20 minutes covered loosely in foil before slicing and serving it with the apples and sauce.