Proscuitto and Pesto Chicken with Polenta

Okay so when I went to write down the name of this dinner I realised that last last night, I must have been subconsciously been obsessed with the letter P. Proscuitto and Pesto chicken, with Parmesan Polenta, and a rocket salad with Pine nuts. Now that thats out of the way…

I love polenta, and not just because it is delicious. It is also good for you as it is just milled dried corn, and really quick to make.

For enough for two of us for dinner, I poured two cups of milk and a cup of chicken stock into a saucepan and brought it to the boil. As soon as it started to bubble, i rained in 120g of polenta and stirred until thick. I then added a small handful of parmesan in and stirred it in. It was poured into a square cake tin that i’d sprayed with olive oil spray and put in the fridge to set. Lots of recipes say this takes about two hours, but i’ve found it seems to take only about 30 minutes.

I had a bunch of left over basil in the fridge, so I thought i’d make pesto. It is so easy to make you’ll wonder why you ever bought it.

I started by popping a small handful of pine nuts into a pan with no oil on the stove and cooked them until they had a bit of colour. I then ripped all the leaves off the bunch of basil in one motion, and popped them in the blender. I added a good lug of olive oil, a handful of grated parmesan and the pine nuts and turned it on for five seconds. And hey presto, it’s pesto!

I placed two pieces of proscuitto that were slightly overlapping each other on a sheet of baking paper on the bench and topped it with a chicken breast. And then repeated the process as I was cooking for two. A dollop of the pesto was then spread over the chicken breasts and I rolled the proscuitto over to enclose it. It was then into a 180 degree oven for about ten minutes until the chicken was cooked through.

In the mean time, I took the slab of polenta out of the fridge, turned it out onto a piece of baking paper, sprinkled it with a bit more parmesan and popped it under the grill to warm the polenta and melt the cheese.

With a bit more time to spare, I popped some rocket, pine nuts and feta into a bowl and… Ta da! A salad!

And just like that, I made this: