My family loves this recipe from Company's Coming Holiday Entertaining as a nod to roast chicken and stuffing dinners, without the huge amount of leftovers and dishes. It is scrumptious with garlic smashed potatoes and I sometimes add a size of cranberry sauce. Feel free to play around with the stuffing ingredients. I often will add things like orange zest, some fresh herbs (depending on the state of my herb garden), pecans, etc.
Serves 2 (at least according the recipe, but it serves our family of three just fine)
2 whole boneless, skinless, chicken breasts
Stuffing:
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp chopped onion
2 tbsp celery
zest of an orange
1 cup dry bread crumbs (I take leftover french bread and leave it out for a few days, then cube it)
1 tbsp chives (fresh herbs are good as a substitute-sage, thyme, tarragon)
1/4 tsp poultry seasoning
salt and pepper sprinkle
1 1/2 tbsp white wine
1 1/2 tbsp orange juice (more or less, depending on how much you need to make it moist
Melt the butter in a fry pan. Add the onion and celery, and saute until they are soft and translucent. Remove from heat. Toss with bread crumbs, chives, poultry seasoning, salt and pepper, then drizzle the milk/chicken brother over top and mix well. Add more juice if you need to in order to make the dressing cling together.
Lay the chicken breasts on a flat surface and give them a good pounding so they are about pretty much uniform thickness throughout. (Jake hates this, he says it sounds like I'm torturing the food). Then divide the dressed between the two breasts, mounding it up along the center. Fold the breasts each in half over the dressing and secure with toothpicks.
Place stuffed breasts into a casserole dish and spoon 1/2 of the orange sauce over top. Bake, uncovered, at 325 F for about 45 minutes, until tender. Remove from the oven and allow to cool five minutes before slicing them and arranging on the plates, spooning more of the sauce on top.
Orange sauce
1/2 cup orange marmalade
1 tbsp orange juice concentrate, thawed
Mix together in a small saucepan over low heat until warm and runny.
