Chicken Cordon Bleu In Frozen Dinner Roll Blankets

I've been seeing all these posts about chicken cordon bleu in crescent rolls on Facebook and it got me hungry for one of my favorite meals. I remember back in my hometown of Stratford, CT,  having the dish at a local eatery that used to be called The Pub, where they fried a chicken breast stuffed with cheese and ham and drizzled it with a savory orange glaze that made all the flavors pop together. My taste buds tingle just thinking about it. 

But alas, I am in the Utah desert, some 3000 miles from that place. Even If that eatery is still around and serving their cordon bleu,  there isn't much chance of me getting there anytime soon. So I got creative. 

I had frozen chicken breasts in the freezer and some leftover ham from Easter as well. I also had some frozen dinner rolls, (the kind you have to thaw and proof). To top it off, I had some orange marmalade and yellow mustard. As my wife was climbing in the car this morning to go to work, I said, "Do you want chicken cordon bleu tonight?" 

She's easy to please most days and pretty much always thankful that I cook so that she doesn't have to. It's not that she can't or won't. It's just that she did it for a lot of years in her previous life and since I enjoy doing it, she's happy enough to eat it. 

I had to do some husbandly duties in the morning like laundry and thawing the chicken and rolls before I got to work making dinner. And I knew the first thing I had to do was go find some swiss cheese, a nigh-impossible task. So I managed to get my act together by 2 PM and drove down to the Offshore Grill where I  hoped I could find some swiss cheese in the desert.  

For $3.58 I bought a dozen slices of swiss from the deli/grill and I was ready to cook. 

To begin, I cut two thawed chicken breasts in thirds the long way, making thick fingers.  I seasoned them with SPG and olive oil. Sliding them into a rocket hot cast iron pan, I browned them and cooked them almost all the way, and put them aside in the fridge to cool. 

To the hot pan, I added a tablespoon of chopped garlic and a tablespoon of butter.  The garlic browned while I scraped up the bits of chicken in the pan. I added a cup of hot water and a chicken bouillon cube and brought the whole thing to a boil. I then whisked in a half cup of the marmalade and a tablespoon of mustard, a dash of Worcestershire, a dash of hot sauce, a pinch of salt, a sprig of fresh rosemary from the garden, and 1/4 tsp of dried thyme.  (I would have preferred dijon mustard but this is the desert, so all I had was yellow.) Heat just until slightly thickened and set aside. 

The Sauce:

 1 Tb Chopped Garlic

1 Tb butter

1 cup hot water

1 Chicken Boulllion Cube ( or a cup of chicken broth but skip the water if you use chicken broth) 

1 Sprig rosemary

1/4 tsp of dry thyme

Dash of Worcestershire

Dash of Hot sauce 

The Meat: 

Next, I sliced the ham as thin as I could without a meat slicer and assembled the miz en place. 

6 chicken medallions cut longways into fingers

6 slices of really good homemade ham, sliced as thin as possible

6 slices of swiss cheese (depending on your need for cheese you could also add a little more swiss or even a little mozzarella to amp up stretch) 

6 tsp of Marmalade

6 tsp of mustard 

Salt and Pepper

12 Frozen rolls, thawed and proofed for three hours in the fridge, and 1 hour at room temperature

The Assembly:

Mush the 12 rolls into 6 balls, two rolls per ball. 

Roll each dough ball out to approximately 8-inch rounds with a rolling pin or as I did, using a wine bottle because we don't have a rolling pin. Lay a piece of ham in the center of each rolled-out dough ball and place one piece of chicken on top of the ham,. Spread the chicken with 1 tsp of marmalade and 1 tsp of mustard. Season to taste. Lay a slice of cheese on top of the chicken and then fold the dough up around the sides. Don't worry about covering the whole thing with dough, as the open ends will allow the cheese to expand while cooking and the steam to escape. Basically, make a  dough taco around the ham, chicken, and cheese. 

Let proof at least 1 hour at room temperature, and pinch the dough closed if it comes open again. 

Bake the chicken at 350-degrees until golden brown and test to make sure the chicken is done with an instant-read thermometer reading 165 degrees

Heat the sauce up and thicken the sauce the rest of the way to a syrup consistency. If needed, add a little cornstarch dissolved in water to the sauce to thicken. Serve immediately. 

The Next Day:

I generally don't enjoy a meal day of, but reserve my judgment for the next day's leftovers. If I can eat it for breakfast the next day, then I know it was something special. You are reading this, so this was good. I heated it up in the toaster oven at 350 degrees for 15 mins. Halfway through the heat up, to up the cheesiness, I draped a slice of swiss over it and spooned a little of the sauce on top. It was delectable.