Chicken breast stuffed with chorizo

This is one of my favourite 'dinner party dishes' as it tastes fabulous and looks far more impressive than it probably is. It can be fiddly to pull off a perfect stuffed chicken breast, but is far from complex, so give it a go and let me know how you get on.

As much as we all love chicken a whole breast can lack flavour, so stuffing it with chorizo makes up for this with abundance, while the wafer thin prosciutto wrapped around also adds a lovely taste. Ok, on to the recipe.


Ingredients

4 large plump chicken breasts
5 inches of cured chorizo sausage
4/8 rashers of prosciutto
1 large onion (finely chopped)
salt and freshly cracked black pepper
1 tbsp of olive oil

Method

1. Start by turning the oven on to 180 degrees.
   
2. Now the difficult bit. Use a sharp knife with a small blade and carefully push it into the end of each chicken breast at the plumpest part. Make sure you do not get too close to breaking through at the other end. Take out the knife and push in a (washed) finger to open up the hole further, but keeping the breast in tact.
   
3. Now chop four inches of the chorizo (one inch per chicken breast is enough, but you can use more) into small pieces. Slice the remaining inch into four even pieces, which will be used to block up the chicken later.
   
4. Fry the onion in a little of the oil for a few minutes and then add the chopped chorizo. Stir constantly until the chorizo lets off its oil and the onion is soft. Take off the heat and mix in the salt and pepper. Leave to cool.
   
5. Once cool push as much of the mixture as you can into each chicken breast. Don't push your luck or the breast may rip. Use the chorizo slices to fill the hole.
   
6. Now rub the remaining oil over the breasts and place on a hot pan over a medium heat, turning often to sear all sides. Do one at a time to make it easier.
   
7. Finally wrap the semi-cooked breasts with the prosciutto. One or two slices each depending on their width. Now place in the hot oven with foil placed roughly on top of the breasts. Turn once at 15 minutes, remove the foil and leave for another 15 minutes.
   

Please check the chicken is fully cooked and then enjoy your meal, especially when you first slice open your stuffed chicken breast.

A variation of the above is to add chopped chili in with the onion to give an extra kick to this dish.