Saltimbocca alla Kanana

This is my chicken version of saltimbocca alla romana. Kanana comes from the Finnish word "kana" meaning chicken, and "na" here is pure onomatopoetic sillyness. Well, "kanana" means as a chicken (as in "my day as a chicken") but it has little relevance here. I am fully aware that this is not exactly like the original recipe with veal, and for those, you can find many recipes just by googling.

I don't use any additional salt to the fillets as prosciutto contains quite a bit already. I suggest adding salt only after tasting. Another tip is that if you use potato wedges as the side dish, try to take them out the oven 5-10 mins before serving, they cool a little and develop the most delicious sweet taste!

Main ingredients

Saltimbocca alla Kanana

• 2 Boneless chicken breast fillets
• 6 Prosciutto slices
• 8-10 Fresh sage leaves
• 1 dl (+0,5dl water) Dry sherry
• 1 tbsp Butter
• Black pepper
• (Plain cotton thread to tie)

This time I used chives

1. Take the fillets to room temperature. Prepare what ever you are going to serve the saltimbocca with. I often use owen baked potato wedges as they suck up the liquids from saltimbocca and are very tasty. Of course, rice will do nicely too. So peel and cut the potatos, spice them up (I often use just salt and pepper, but paprika is good too, some herbs, or lemon juice to give some spicyness), mix in olive oil and put them into oven for ~30 mins (200C). Or put the rice to the boil.
2. Cut a hole in the side of each fillet. Be careful, it's very easy to cut it through but now we want to create a cavity inside the file. When you have cut the fillets, fill them each with 1-2 sage leaves and 3 prosciutto slices. Don't remove the fat from prosciutto, chicken is so dry that it requires all the extra moisture it can get. If you punctured the sides while cutting, and the filling is spilling out, you can use plain, colourless cotton thread to tie the fillet.
3. Heat up the pan. Put in butter, let it melt and bubble, and fry the fillets from both sides so that it gets nice colour.
4. Lower the heat, put sherry (and water) in the pan, put the lid on and let gently simmer for 10-15 mins. When the chicks are almost done, put in some sage leaves and let simmer for 2-3 mins.
5. Fish the fillets out, grind some pepper on them, ladle some of the liquid over and serve!

Lovely, even though I say it myself ;)