AirFryday: Prosciutto chicken parcels stuffed with courgettes and blue cheese

Italian ham and blue cheese are right up my street. Wrap one around a chicken breast and put the other inside — along with slivers of courgette — and that’s a supper worth salivating over.

My current small-town life doesn’t often give me special ingredients, unless I’m travelling to the city. But when, out of the blue, I spot something like the pack of prosciutto ham I found the other day, I pounce faster than a puma that’s spotted a rabbit. (I just checked, they like rabbits.)

So in the basket they went, followed in short order by some chicken breasts, a punnet of courgettes, and a brace of rabbits in case I spotted a puma on the way home.

I had quickly put a whole recipe together just by browsing in the supermarket. That’s how a lot of my recipes happen, actually; when I enter the shop I often have no idea what I’m going to cook, and by the time I get home a recipe has started to form.

You could turn these out as the main course for a dinner party. Perhaps start with my snoek pâté and the mango-jerepigo relish that goes with it. To end, how about my green fig preserve ice cream…

Tony’s Prosciutto chicken parcels stuffed with courgettes and blue cheese

(Makes 4)

Ingredients

4 chicken breasts fillets

Olive oil to coat

12 slices of prosciutto

4 small courgettes

4 Tbsp crumbled blue cheese

1 tsp garlic powder

Salt and black pepper

Method

Rinse the courgettes, pat dry, and top and tail them.

Slice them lengthwise into thin strips, about 4 strips per courgette.

Using a small, sharp knife, cut pockets in the four chicken breasts, side on through the thicker side. Fold it out so that it is butterflied.

On a board, lay out a large piece of cling film. Place a chicken breast on it, towards one side of the cling film, and fold it over to cover the breast. Using your palms, apply pressure to flatten out the breast. Repeat with the other three breasts.

Season the breasts with salt, black pepper and a sprinkling of garlic powder. Place the four slices of courgette on top of each one. Sprinkle crumbled blue cheese on the courgettes. Fold the breast over, and roll it in our hands to neaten and firm it up.

Put it back on the board and place three strips of prosciutto over it, wrapping them around. Drizzle a little oil on and rub it all over with your hands, only enough to coat them. (Then wash your hands, presumably.)

Preheat an air fryer to 180°C.

Place the breast parcels in the basket (no need to oil the basket, the breasts are already oiled) and cook for 8 minutes on one side, then turn and cook for another 8 minutes.

Serve with a crispy potato dish such as these sumac-spiced spuds. DM

Tony Jackman is twice winner of the Galliova Food Writer of the year award, in 2021 and 2023

Order Tony’s book, foodSTUFF, here.

Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks.

This dish is photographed on a plate by Mervyn Gers Ceramics.