Smothered Chicken Breasts

The past few days that the temperature has fallen to normal levels, I feel alive again. So, I seized the opportunity to create something. Of course do not expect me to reinvent the wheel, but I tried to make something a little bit fuzzier, with a little bit more preparation time. As I told you, I was in a very good mood; otherwise I wouldn’t do something like that in the middle of the week. I can tell you that the end result definitely was worth the trouble and the time necessary to prepare it. If by any chance you feel like exercising yourself in a weekday, try this recipe, you won’t regret it.
Now that the weather is not that hot, I feel I can do almost anything. I can totally understand why northern people are more energetic than southerners. The climate plays very important role to your mood, to your stamina, energy, manner, psychological status, character and a number of other things including the formulation of language as well. Anyway back to my kitchen, I will try to be as analytical as possible, so as to help you understand step by step what I did.

The name came to me from something equivalent we eat at Applebee’s. It is not the same, but because I used cheese broiled on the grill just like Applebee’s, I thought I could borrow the name. You can name it anything you like.

Cut each chicken breast in half lengthwise. That means that you will have 8 pieces. In a skillet put the peppers and onion on medium heat and sauté for a few minutes. Add salt, pinch of paprika, cayenne pepper, dried oregano, dried basil and garlic powder. Add the brandy and flambé. Flambé means to put fire on the skillet. In this way the alcohol is burnt. I do not recommend this method, unless you have done it before and you are familiar with that. You can skip this step and just let the alcohol evaporate as it is cooked. Anyway, after that, just lower the heat to low and let the onions and peppers caramelize. This will take around 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 175°C.

Cut so many pieces of parchment paper as the number of the breasts. In my case I cut 8 pieces. Now each piece should be big enough to put the breast in it and cover and make it like a package (see pictures).

When the onions and peppers are ready take a piece of parchment paper and put 1 tbsp of Marsala wine, place the breast above it. Add salt, pinch of paprika, dried oregano, dried basil, cayenne pepper. On top, place one spoonful of the onion-pepper mix and add another 1 tbsp of Marsala wine. Close the package and place it on a pan. You do the same for the rest of the breasts. Put them in the oven and let them bake for 20 to 30 minutes. Check them regularly as we do not want them to be burnt.

When they are ready, discard the parchment papers and place a new parchment paper in the same or  in another pan. Take the breasts and place them on it. Add the cheese. I used slices of emmental and I put half slice in each breast. On top I added about 1 spoon of parmigiano and 1 spoon of graviera. Turn on the broiler and put it back in. Let it broil for 5 to 10 minutes. Check it out regularly, because it can be burnt in no time. Once the cheese has melted and turned a little bit golden, take them out of the oven.

I served them with boiled zucchini, baby carrots and broccoli. All these I made them in my steam-cooker. Enjoy it!