Chicken Kiev with a Twist

I haven't made chicken breasts in a while and normally I'll marinate them and either grill them or chunk them up for tempura. But I wanted to stuff them this time. I had to think about this and search high and low for a recipe, as most stuffed chicken uses cheese, which Hubbs doesn't like.

I remember seeing The Martha make Chicken Kiev once and thought it looked interesting. I liked the idea of the hidden pat of herbed butter infusing the chicken with it's flavor while also keeping the meat moist. The only thing I didn't like was the deep frying. Yes, me. I KNOW! But I don't really like fried chicken breast, go figure.

This recipe is taken from bits and pieces of a few recipes I read - because not one single recipe tripped my trigger, if ya know what I mean. I also decided to give it a bit of a twist by lightly dredging the rolled breasts in ranch dressing in lieu of beaten eggs and also to use Panko instead of traditional bread crumbs. And finally, I decided to try to bake them instead of deep frying.

This is a keeper for sure. The breasts were extremely moist and super flavorful due to the herbed butter and ranch dressing. The Panko baked up crunchy and took on a nice golden color. By placing the breasts on a rack over the baking dish, they did not cook in their own juices so the bottoms were just as crunchy as the tops. My only faux pas was forgetting to add the lemon juice to the herbed butter. Next time I'll do that as I think the lemon will brighten the flavors of the chives and parsley nicely. Oh yeah.. and might I suggest, when you make this recipe do NOT use the pretty colored tooth pics to help seal the rolls. As you'll see in the picture, although they did work in keeping the butter inside the rolls, they left a loverly dot of blue dye on the chicken. How attractive is that? heee! I served these with smashed sweet potatoes and steamed green beans.

Chicken Kiev with a Twist

4 chicken breasts, pounded to about an 1/8th inch thick
4 TBS butter, softened
1 TBS. fresh, snipped chives
1 TBS. fresh, chopped parsley
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
2 tsp. fresh lemon juice
2 cups Panko crumbs
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. paprika (I used sweet spanish paprika)
1/2 tsp. salt
2 TBS. fresh, chopped parsley
1 c. ranch dressing

Preheat oven to 375º F.

In a small bowl, combine the softened butter, chives, parsley, lemon juice and garlic powder. Transfer to a small piece of plastic wrap and shape into a small log. Place in freezer while working on the breasts.

In a shallow dish or bowl, combine the Panko with the garlic powder, paprika, salt and parsley - mix well with your finger tips.

In another shallow dish or bowl add the ranch dressing.

Take the butter out of the freezer (it should have been in there for at least 10 minutes, allowing it to harden - but would be better if you made the butter ahead of time so that the flavors could meld even more.) Cut into either 4 disks width wise or 4 slices length wise. I went with the long slices.

Season pounded breasts on both sides with salt and pepper. Lay 1 breast flat in front of you and place a slice of the herbed butter in the middle of the breast. Roll the edge closest to you towards the other end, bringing up the sides half way through the roll. Use toothpics to secure.

Dredge the rolls lightly through the ranch dressing and then through the bread crumbs. Place the rolls on a rack that has been placed in a baking dish. I used a small rack over a 8" square baking dish as I only baked 2 rolls and froze the other 2 for a quickie dinner another night. Continue on in this fashion for the rest of the chicken breasts.

Bake them in the preheated oven for 30 minutes or until the juices run clear when poked with the tip of a knife.