Prosciutto Wrapped Chicken Breasts with Gold Potatoes

With a good boning knife, this deceptively simple gluten-free dish impresses, wherever your adventures take you.

Ingredients – serves 2

Two chicken breasts
4 thin slices prosciutto
1/4 cup shredded cheese, such as cheddar, mozzarella, fontina
1/2 lb gold baby potatoes
Neutral cooking oil
Sea salt
Salad greens for serving

Gear

Jetboil Genesis Basecamp with propane hook-up
Dometic Go or other method for a clean water source
2 sauté pans or pots
Silicone lid
Tongs
Spatula or kitchen spoon
Kitchen twine, 6ft (183 cm), cut into 4 pieces 18in long (46 cm)
Cutting board (at least one, two is better)
Paper towels
Hand soap
Plates and silverware for serving

Process

This recipe is a great one to prep at home, but you’ll see how to do the whole thing at camp, right off the back of the 4Runner, below. Reference “Cooking Notes and Helpful Links” at the end for further tips on keeping salmonella at bay while camping, and recommendations on gear and ingredients.

Set aside a plate with paper towels on it for the chicken. Rinse the chicken well and lay on the prepared plate. Pat dry and set aside.
Cut the potatoes into pieces – usually I cut them into 1/8ths. If you have a camp stove with lower BTU’s, you may want to cut them smaller so they’ll cook faster.

Add potatoes to sauté pan, add about 3 tablespoons of oil, and a 1/4 teaspoon salt. Toss well to coat. Get the potatoes cooking over medium heat and cover. Watch them closely so they don’t burn.
The potatoes will take a lot longer than the chicken, that’s why you start them first. Be watching and stirring as you continue with the recipe and adjust your timing accordingly.

If you’re making a side salad to go with the chicken and potatoes do any chopping you’ll need for that now. I sliced up a few cocktail tomatoes for the salad and set them aside on a plate. I used pre-sliced mushrooms and pre-julienned carrots too. My dressing was just oil and salt.
Start by halving the chicken breasts lengthwise. This is basically butterflying, but you’re cutting all the way through the breasts, where a true butterfly leaves the edge attached so it opens like a book–or like a butterfly’s wings. Here, you’ll end up with 4 thin pieces of chicken breast. You’ll need a very sharp knife for this, preferably with a thin, narrow blade. I love my Dalstrong flexible filet knife (link at the end of the post), which comes with a leather sheath that snaps to a belt loop or a pack for taking on the road.

Start by placing the chicken breasts smooth side down, with the thick part facing you and the thin tip facing away from you. Placing the breast at a bit of a diagonal angle to where you are standing works well. Lay your hand across the top. Place the blade of the knife parallel to the cutting board, half way up the thickest edge of the chicken. Run your knife through the center of the breast, from one side to the other, pushing away from you towards the tip. Work in smooth strokes and go slowly, watching to make sure you’re cutting evenly or you’ll end up with pieces that are different sizes (like I did)!

Once you have finished halving the chicken, use a generous pinch of salt to season both sides of all the chicken pieces.

Now place a piece of prosciutto under each piece of chicken. Usually if you buy a package of prosciutto, each slice is separated by a piece of wax paper. It helps to keep the prosciutto on its wax paper when you lay it down.
Sprinkle 1-2 tablespoons of shredded cheese onto each piece of chicken. Try to keep the cheese away from the edges, which will help the cheese stay inside the packet once you roll it all up.

Roll each chicken breast, starting at the thick end and rolling towards the thinner tip. as you roll, pull away the prosciutto from the wax paper. You may need to do a bit of custom tucking and tweaking but it should go pretty smoothly.

Holding the rolled chicken in one hand, use your other hand to tie the twine around the outside. You should be able to wrap the twine three times, tying off with a secure knot. Don’t worry about making the twine tight, it’s really just there to gently hold the whole thing together while it cooks. It should be tight enough to stay in place, but not so tight it pulls at the prosciutto and buckles the roll.

Once you have all your chicken prepared, heat a pan and add a generous coating of cooking oil.
When the oil is heated through, add the chicken to the pan.

Let cook until the outside is browned and crispy, the cheese is melted and the chicken is opaque all the way through. If you’re a meat thermometer person, check for an internal temp of at least 165 degrees Fahrenheit/ 74 degrees Celsius.

Then open the wine! I’d recommend a bright, zingy red with a narrower palate, or a meaty rosé. Try an Italian red like this Nero D’Avola or 19 Crimes Cali Rosé (Yep, Snoop Dogg has a wine label, and I actually like it).

I opened this special bottle since we bought it on another overlanding trip of ours, to New Mexico. I can tell you I’ve had much better bottles, but the sentiment was real. Stick to the recommendations above.

Plate up the chicken, snipping off the twine before serving. Then add the potatoes to the plate, which should be nicely cooked with just a bit of golden around the cut edges. If you’re serving the side salad, add that too.

As usual, we had to have a great tequila along for the ride. This was actually a pre-dinner sipper for us, but would be a great after dinner drink too. Cheers!

Cooking Notes and Helpful Links

As always, remember that every camp stove is different, and can be less predictable than your stovetop at home. Keep a close eye on both pans as they cook, especially if you’re unfamiliar with your setup.

You will definitely need a clean water source for this recipe. Our Dometic Go water faucet was a game changer.

Dalstrong Gladiator Series 7″ Flexible Fillet Knife – I love this knife! I use it for removing skin from fish, cubing fish and meat, and, as with this recipe, butterflying cuts of meat.

If you were paying really close attention in the photos you saw I have two different silicone lids. One is great in theory, and the other is just great. The one I recommend hands down is the Le Creuset Silicone Lid

Preparing the chicken: Teamwork really does make the dream work. When I am handling raw chicken, it is helpful to have Ryan there to manhandle the faucet, the Camp Suds, and anything else I don’t want to touch. Be vocal with any camp mates so you can work as a team. Don’t touch everything in camp with chicken juice on your hands—salmonella takes the fun out of camping. And remember — Mise en place! Which is French for, Have a good prep area set up before you begin! For this recipe I chopped up any vegetables first and set them aside so I could designate the cutting board for raw meat at the end. And definitely make sure you have trash collection open and ready next to your prep area.

Cooking oil spray: I’ve experimented with a few different brands and types of cooking spray. I prefer not to use generic “cooking spray”, but rather something that is a natural, healthy oil that also happens to be in a spray bottle. For cooking on top of a mountain with limited resources, a spray bottle is the best way to keep everything contained and easy. I’ve dealt with clogged nozzles, oils getting rancid quickly, and best of all, cold air causing the oil to solidify. That being said, my all-time favorite go-to is Good & Gather Avocado Oil Cooking Spray. Avocado oil has a high smoke-point meaning you can use it at high temperatures, unlike olive oil. It’s a very neutral oil, so it doesn’t lend flavors to the food. Good & Gather’s oil is expeller pressed with no additives and no propellants. And the nozzle actually works and keeps spraying even in cold weather.