Chicken Saltimbocca with Sauteed Mushrooms and Israeli Couscous

Nick picked this recipe out of our Giada de Laurentiis cookbook, and I ended up making it.  While preparation is detailed/tricky, this is a great meal to wow guests or really surprise a special someone.  We had leftovers, too.  Yummm.





Chicken Saltimbocca

Here's what I used:

3 chicken cutlets, pounded to evenly flatten
6 slices prosciutto
1 16 oz package frozen chopped spinach, thawed
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup grated Parmesan or Parmesan/Mozzarella mix
1 (14-ounce) can low-salt chicken broth (or 2 cups water & 2 cubes bullion)
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
S&P

2 cups button mushrooms
1 cup uncooked israeli couscous
garlic salt

Here's what we did:

Nick pounded the chicken breasts flat with a mallet on the cutting board until they were about 1/4" thick.  Then he seasoned both sides of each cutlet lightly with S&P.  He also microwaved the frozen spinach in a bowl with a little water for 2 minutes, until thawed, and then drained off the excess water.  Then he drizzled 1 tsp of olive oil and lightly seasoned spinach with S&P.

Then he had leave to get his hair cut...

So I picked up where he left off.  Laying slices of prosciutto across each chicken breast, then a few heaping spoons of spinach, and finally a generous 1/3 of the cheese.  Once all ingredients were on the chicken breast, I rolled them together, and used my cooking rubber bands to hold the rolled chicken together.  I needed two across the width, and one across the length to hold them together.  You can also use toothpicks, but we didn't have any...and the bands are super easy.

Next I added the remaining olive oil to a large nonstick skillet and set it on a med-high flame.  Once the oil was hot, I added my chicken rolls and allowed them to lightly brown on all sides, for about 2-3 minutes total.  Then I added in the lemon juice and chicken stock, turned down to a simmer, covered, for another 8 minutes, turning once midway through.

Meanwhile, in another pot, I sauteed some button mushrooms with 1 tsp of olive oil and garlic salt, and also added the remaining spinach.  I set 1 cup of water and garlic salt to boil in a small saucepan, and cooked my israeli couscous as well.

Once the chicken was cooked through, I removed the cooking bands, and plated each chicken roll with the couscous and spinach and mushrooms.  It was delish.  Give it a try!