Rolled Chicken Breasts

600 g chicken breasts in one piece (without skin and bones)
200 g fresh sausage (casing removed)
20 g dried porcini mushrooms
20 g dried chanterelle mushrooms
40 g toasted hazelnuts
a little dried thyme and rosemary
1 clove garlic, pressed
250 ml beer
olive oil
salt
ground black pepper

Soak mushrooms in warm water for about 15 minutes, strain, squeeze out the water and chop. Heat some oil in a pan. Add mushrooms, sausage, garlic, coarsely ground hazelnuts, salt, pepper and herbs and fry for about 10 minutes, until sausage is done.

Butterfly the chicken breasts making it one piece of meat equally thick all the way, then flatten it with a kitchen hammer (do not cut the breasts into two pieces!). Rub it with salt and pepper and spread some oil over. Spread filling equally over the meat, roll and tie tightly with a kitchen rope.

Fry in a pan on all sides until crust begins to form, then transfer into a baking pan, pour the juices from frying and beer over and bake in a preheated oven on 190°C for about 50 minutes, occasionally poring the sauce over the meat. If you want to, you can bake some potatoes with the roll (about 2 medium sized potatoes per person cut into pieces).

Note: I made this for Sale & Pepe Serbia magazine tasting team, for November 2009 issue.

Curry Honey Chicken

Curry Honey Chicken
(original recipe)

about 500 g chicken breasts, cut into pieces
1 Tbsp honey
1 tsp curry powder
75 ml oil
2 Tbsp lemon juice
50 ml soy sauce

Dip meat into a mixture of the rest of the ingredients. Fry meat on medium heat for about 5 minutes or until chicken is done.

If you want, you can remove finished meat from the pan and thicken the sauce with 1 tsp of corn starch dissolved in a little cold water.

Note: Ovo je moja ulaznica za FBI Rukavice, igru koju je osmislila mamajac sa bloga Cooks and Bakes. Blog pod istragom je Урбане стоноге гастрономска збрка.

Daring Bakers, November 2009 - Cannoli

The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook: As Compiled by Artie Bucco by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.

My notes: It was nice, but noting special. Maybe I should have flattened the dough more, or maybe I fried them too long, but I just feel like something's missing. Maybe I created too high expectations looking at Tony Soprano devouring them. Anyway, it's something I'll definitely give another try.

Lidisano’s Cannoli Shells

250 g flour
2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp white wine vinegar
about 125 ml any wine you have on hand
1 large egg white

Place all of the ingredients except wine and the egg white in a bowl. Add a little wine and start kneading. Keep adding more wine enough to make soft dough. To me quantity of the wine from the recipe was enough. Shape dough into a ball, oil it and place in a freezer bag. Keep in the fridge overnight.

The next day, flatten the dough to the 2-3 mm thickness. Cut out circles with a diameter that is equal or smaller than the length of your cannoli forms. Wrap the dough circles around oiled cannoli forms using egg white as a glue (see instructions on how to do that on Lisa Michele's post). Deep fry in a lot of oil until they're golden.

When they cool, separate them from the forms and dip the edges into melted chocolate then, while chocolate is still warm, dip it into some ground nuts, candies or anything you like. Then, fill them with the filling of your choice. I used Chruncy Filling from Torte Egyptian recipe.