Christmas dinner tradition calls for somebody in the family to be shackled to the kitchen all Christmas Day, to fix a turkey for the feast. We kitchen devils say, “To heck with that idea!” After all, the best part of the turkey is the stuffing, anyway. So, we tossed out the turkey.

Unlike the full day of galley slave duty demanded by a turkey, these tasty (rich in stuffing) rouladen only take 1½ hours to prepare. And … no leftovers!

Note: This recipe is easy to scale up. We’ve made it for two, but you can make it for four, six, eight, a small army. Just double, triple, quadruple, etc. and increase the size of your casserole dish.

 

Ingredients (Serves 2)

For each extra person at the Christmas dinner table, add another chicken breast and increase the amount of other ingredients accordingly.

Chicken Rouladen

2 tbsp butter

½ onion, chopped

½ stalk celery, chopped

½ cup chopped cooked chestnuts (4oz or 110g)

2 cups ½” (12mm) rye bread cubes (cut from 2-3 slices of bread)

2 tsp dried sage, crumbled

½ tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

1/3 – ½ cup chicken broth (or water and 1 bouillon cube)

1 egg, beaten

2 chicken breasts (6-7 oz or 170-200g each)

 

Basting Sauce

¼ cup butter

½ tsp dried sage, crumbled

¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

 

1. Melt the butter over medium-low heat. Add the onions and cook for 8-10 minutes, until tender.

2. Add the celery and chestnuts, and cook for 5 minutes.

3. In a large bowl, combine the bread cubes, sage, salt, and pepper. Mix in the onion, celery, and chestnut mixture. Add half of the chicken broth and mix well. Over the next 10 minutes, toss the mixture occasionally and add more broth as it is absorbed. You want the bread to become soggy with broth, but not have extra broth remaining in the bowl.

4. Add the beaten egg, and mix well.

5. Use a kitchen mallet or other heavy object (In The Devil’s Kitchen, we prefer an empty wine bottle, but that may just be an excuse to empty the bottle), to flatten the chicken breasts to about ¼” (5-6mm) thick.

6. Lay the chicken breasts on top of 3-4 lengths of kitchen string.

7. Spoon a generous amount of the stuffing onto each chicken breast.

8. Fold up the sides and gently pinch together.

9. Tie the strings to hold the chicken rouladen together.

10. Place the rouladen in a casserole dish that is just slightly larger than them. Spoon the remaining stuffing around the rouladen.

11. Pre-heat the oven to 375F (190c).

12. In a small pot, melt the ¼ cup butter for the basting sauce. Add the sage, salt, and pepper.

13. Baste the chicken rouladen.

14. To protect the stuffing from drying out, mould foil over it and around the chicken rouladen.

15. Bake for 1 hour, generously basting the rouladen every 10-15 minutes. For the final 15 minutes, remove the foil.