Recipe: Chicken with Ham and Provolone (chicken breasts)

Chicken with Ham and Provolone Cheese
rec.food.recipes/Jill M. Nicolaus (1994)
Serves 4-6

I came up with this recipe last week when a friend gave me some wonderful sliced Polish ham that seemed too good to use only in sandwiches!

3 whole chicken breasts
9 slices cured Polish ham
2-3 Tbsp seedless raspberry jam
1 1/2 cups uncooked rice
3 cups water
1 1/2 lbs. broccoli
6-8 slices provolone cheese

Use vegetable oil or cooking spray to lightly grease a large baking dish. (I used a 9x12-inch cake tin.)

Remove the broccoli heads from the stems. Trim the stems, slice and chop coarsely like celery.

Put the rice and the chopped broccoli stems in the bottom of the baking dish.

Spread the ham slices with raspberry jam and wrap them (raspberry side down) around all sides of each chicken breast. Arrange the chicken breasts down the center of the dish.

Break the broccoli head into pieces and place around the chicken. Add the 3 cups water.

Cover and bake 45 min. at 350F.

Remove dish from oven (to check chicken for doneness, cut into it with a knife or fork -- meat should be white, juices should run clear).

When done, cover chicken breasts with slices of cheese and put additional pieces of cheese over the rice and broccoli, then return to oven and bake uncovered another 5-10 min. until cheese is melted. It will look & smell wonderful! Split chicken breasts to serve 4-6.

I suppose this is similar to chicken cordon bleu (?), but it seemed much easier than stuffing deboned chicken breasts, and the rice and broccoli are delicious cooked this way. I didn't add salt, pepper, or other seasonings because the ham I used was so delicious and strongly flavored; use your judgment. Asparagus and/or mushrooms would probably be good substitutes for the broccoli. I liked the subtle flavor added by the raspberry jam, which was not too sweet; probably you could substitute another jam or a small amount of honey.