The French don’t beat their meat

It’s the only logical conclusion I can come up with. I mean, I’ve looked all over for a meat tenderizer and can’t find one any place vaguely convenient. What did you think I was talking about?

Not that I prepare a lot of meat. I don’t actually, but there is one dish that I love, that I learned when I was still a tyke: Chicken Cordon Bleu. And the recipe demands that you pound the hell out of a chicken breast, so that it is nice and flat and rollable into a little bundle of cheesy, ham-filled love.

I didn’t bring one back from the US (my mom and grandma each had several in different sizes) because I figured it should be an easy enough item to find. Where is a Williams-Sonoma when you need one? Not in Paris. The local Monoprix proposes a variety of pots, pans, wooden spoons, toast holders, egg slicers and mustard jars, but no meat tenderizer. I often return to the cooking aisle hoping that one will magically appear some day, but nothing yet. The closest Ikea is, well, far away, and I’m not even sure that they would have one. Habitat, one of my favorite home-deco shops has all kinds of up-scale kitchen stuff – no meat beater. In fact, the only place where they seem to sell all that great kitchen stuff here in Paris, is in specialty professional shops, where the prices don’t appear to be wholesale. Although, the last time I passed one, I was thinking juice not meat, so I’ll have to go back and see what I can find.

Here is the brilliant recipe for Chicken Cordon Bleu à la Californienne that I learned in a gourmet cooking class when I was like 8 or 9:

Ingrediants

• one or two chicken breasts or filets per person depending on how much they like to eat.
• a stick of butter, or a couple of spoon fulls if you use butter out of the tub like i do.
• a jar of apricot jam, or orange if you prefer. you could probably use a red fruit like cranberry or black current, but I haven’t experimented with it yet.
• a half a slice of ham (icky fatty stuff removed) per chicken breast, or about the equivelent of the surface size of the flattened filet.
• thinly sliced Guyère or Compté cheese (I prefer the latter), and it recently occured to me that grated would be a lot easier – will have to try it next time.
• some toothpicks or string.

Since I don’t have a meat tenderizer I improvise using a heavy-ish water glass, and using the flat bottom of the glass, I pound out the chicken breasts using enough force to flatten, but not so much as to break to glass, until they’re nice and squished. Next, with the ugly side of the chicken facing up, lay a slice of ham over it. Trim the ham so that it doesn’t hang too much over the sides. Next, lay on some cheese – keep it modest because it will melt and kinda ooze out. Then, starting with the skinny end, roll the chicken so that the ham and cheese are neatly in the middle, and tie the bundle off with a toothpick or some string so that it stays in place while cooking. Melt some butter. Arrange the chicken bundles in your oven pan of choice, making sure that each has some breathing room, and brush or spoon on a good dose of melted butter onto each. Save some for later.

Here’s the part where any of my recipes will lack accuracy: my oven gets hot immediately (so doesn’t really need any pre-heating ever), and it doesn’t have temperatures. I’m serious. It has this dial with a pictograph of a small flame on one side and a larger flame on the other, but when I actually turn it, I don’t really get the impression that the flames get bigger or smaller. So basically, my oven has one temperature: on. And this works out fine.

So pre-heat if you need it, then turn your oven to chicken-temp and throw the pan in. No, you don’t particularly need to grease the pan since the lot gets pretty gooey, but you can if you wish. Let it cook for 15 minutes, then bring it out. Take a couple big heaping spoonfuls of jam and mix it in with the melted butter you’ve got leftover. You’ll have to adjust the quantity to the amount your making. Brush or spoon on this new jam-butter sauce generously on your half-cooked chicken bundles. Don’t be shy. It will slide off to the sides – try to keep as much on top as possible, but don’t worry about the rest. Put the pan back in the oven for another 10-15 minutes. It’s done!

Since it isn’t exactly light cooking, it’s great served with a green salad or rice dish. I like mixing flavors and often accompany it with and endive salad with walnuts. Miam miam.