Chicken Cordon Bleu with a Creamy Marsala Wine Sauce

Chicken Cordon Bleu is not a recent addition to the menu but rather a 1500’s creation for a French King, Henry III. I like to go a bit out of the culinary box and think of a wine cheese sauce that I can create in the same pan that I just prepared the cordon bleu. This too has be a repeated theme over the years as other chef’s stretched the meal into different directions. I am not going to reach out for a unique dish but rather my end result is a fine plate that a nice bread from my oven will compliment.

The traditional chicken cordon bleu is a meal made in a saute pan after pounding a chicken breast thin and seasoning it with salt and pepper. Ham and cheese is wrapped inside the chicken and browned in your pan on all sides until cooked through. In my version, I want to add some flare to my gal’s choice of meals by browning my cordon bleu then adding mushrooms and some garlic to the pan. The browning butter, garlic and mushrooms will receive some flour to make the roux. After this thickens and browns a bit I with deglaze with a wine. I am using Marsala wine but you can use white wine if you like. The Marsala will compliment the mushrooms.

Let’s make a chicken cordon bleu meal that will make you want to try it in many different ways.

2 thinly sliced chicken breasts or thinly pounded chicken breasts

1 tbsp flour

1/2 cup Marsala wine

1/2 cup chopped mushroom

1 clove of garlic, minced

2 patties butter

2 pinches salt

2 pinches black pepper

2 pinches paprika

1/4 cup chicken broth

2 slices Swiss cheese

2 slices black forest deli ham

1/4 cup half and half

Lay both thinly sliced or thin pounded chicken breasts out on a plate and place the salt and pepper on both sides of each.

Place a slice of cheese on each chicken breast

Place a slice of ham on top of the cheese

Roll up the chicken breast and use a tooth pick to help keep it wrapped by pushing the tooth pick through the chicken until it comes out the other side.

Heat your saute pan on medium heat and place the butter in the pan

Allow butter to melt and add chicken

Brown the chicken on all sides and remove

Add garlic and mushrooms

Saute mushrooms until golden brown

Add flour

Stir flour into the remaining liquid in the pan and cook for about 80 seconds with continued stirring.

Add wine and use the spoon or spatula to work the dark flour bits and mushroom until the wine and browned flour is forming a nice thickening roux.

Add chicken stock and continue stirring

Add half and half and mix until the roux forms a nice creamy gravy

Place the chicken back into pan reduce heat to LOW

Let the gravy coat the chicken as it finishes cooking.

Sprinkle the paprika over the chicken and give the gravy a deep color as it stirs into the gravy

Plate chicken and remove the tooth pick

Spoon gravy and mushroom over the chicken breast

Serve with a nice mashed potato or a buttered egg noodle and a nice field green salad.