Sunday, September 21, 2008

Olive paste chicken rolls with pomegranate dressing

Most Hollywood movies' fans just love to hear that British accent, like Jude Law's, Orlando Bloom's, Hugh Grant's...
Some of my friends from other European countries when they speak English, they'd love to have an American accent though.
But I don't want my Spanish teacher having any accent.
Please don't get me wrong, my Argentina teacher speaks very clear, and his accent is very elegant. However, as an absolute beginner like me still struggling between "i" (which actually sounds "e") and "e" (sounds "ah", however), my ability can't go any further, like, to understand various accents.
A good thing is, he is going to leave next week. I am told that the next one is local.
To celebrate it, I prepared some chicken rolls salad, jazzed up with a very local accent - we speak "olive".
People in Barcelona eat olives and olive oil like there's no tomorrow. You'll see what I did in here too.

My husband has told me, he actually likes to eat cold chicken. Since my time is pretty tight, I can prepare this chicken a day or two ahead, and/or enjoy it day(s) later after it's cooked. So for my husband or for me, this dish fits the bill.

Recipe of olive paste chicken (1 single serving for putting on salad)

  • a single chicken breast
  • 15 big black olives, pitted
  • 1 very small clove of garlic, finely diced
  • 1/2 anchovy in olive oil, drained
  • dry oregano leaves
  • sea salt
  • ground black pepper
  • olive oil

How-to:

  1. Slice the chicken breast as thin as you can. I chilled my chicken in a colder spot of my fridge (not freezer), like the back of the top shelf. After the meat was semi-frozen, I could slice it easily. Lay it flat, slice it horizonally in order to get big fillets. Seasoned with salt and pepper.
  2. Process the black olives, garlic, anchovy and oregano to paste, adding in some olive oil is necessary during processing.
  3. Spread some olive paste on a piece of fillet, roll up, cut to smaller pieces, fasten each one with a toothpaste. Marinate the roll-up in a generous amount of olive oil until you are ready to cook them.
  4. Grill (brush with more olive oil) or swallow-fry them. It doesn't take long to cook, probably just a minute or 2.
  5. Let them totally cool off before placing on salad, or store them in fridge until serve.

To make pomegranate dressing:

For a single serving, arils from a half of pomegranate are required, plus a dash of red wine vinegar and a generours amount oil extra-virgin olive oil

Squeeze juice from the pomegranate arils, but save a few good looking ones for garnish.

Quickly whisk the pomegranate juice, the wine vinegar and olive oil together until they are all emulsified.

To serve: place some green salad on a serving place, top with the chicken rolls, drizzle with the dressing, garnish with pomegranate arils.

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15 comments:

Lydia (The Perfect Pantry) said...

What a beautiful presentation! And I love the combination of flavors, especially the pomegranate dressing.

Rosa's Yummy Yums said...

A refined dish! What a wonderful combination of flavors!

Cheers,

Rosa

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

Spot on beautiful Gattina! Pomegranates are in my markets now! I love that you have to work so hard to get their fruit.

Anonymous said...

Delicious rolls! Nice pictures too.
Ciao.
Orchidea
www.viaggiesapori.blogspot.com

Katie Zeller said...

I've been catching up... Your photos are gorgeous, as always!
And I love olives, too - that's why I love Spain! My Spanish teacher was a German who taught Catalan in Andorra! Then I switched to one from Valencia... who spoke sooooo fast!
Hope you find a new one you like!

Ginny said...

Looks amazing! what a great idea!

Cynthia said...

So elegant.

Melissa said...

Gorgeous! I cannot wait to start cooking with pomegranates.

Thanks for posting this delicious recipe!

Melissa

http://saucychef.blogspot.com/

Anh said...

This is lovely Gattina! I am not a big fan of cold chicken, but it will be nice on a hot summer day.

Lore said...

They look lovely! I adore the chicken breast-olive paste combination because they complement each other so well. And the pomegranate dressing sounds perfect for it!

Hello. said...

These look so incredibly gorgeous and delicious! I can't wait to try them!

Tasty Thai Cooking said...

This look sooo good! I will try it!Nice pic too!

sunita said...

That is such an elegant looking dish :-)

aminah said...

as going to close down my blog and then I remembered how much I would miss checking out the brilliant recipes and images on your super blog,,,and so i changed my mind and here I am!

Anonymous said...

Love that site, because it is quite dynamic in teaching practices to make recipe for the day - day!
It's just a delicious to see!