Pollo alle erbe or pollo Balotelli
Ingredients 4 persons
4 not too small chicken fillets
6 tablespoons flour
Dried herbs:
1 teaspoon of oregano, marjoram and basil
Salt and pepper
60 grams of butter
3 tablespoons olive oil
Fresh herbs 1 to 2 tablespoons:
Rosemary, basil, sea parsley, mint, chives (may be from the freezer), dill (may be from the freezer), chervil (dried is also possible: then ½ tablespoon!)
½ teaspoon dried chillies
1 clove of garlic, peeled
6-8 tablespoons chicken stock
6 tablespoons white wine
3 tablespoons lemon juice
Aluminium foil and large deep frying pan
🕐 20🔪 30 🍳 👩🏼🍳
1. First finely chop all the fresh herbs. Prepare the lemon juice, the peeled clove of garlic, the stock and the bottle of white wine.
2. Make the spiced flour by mixing all the dried herbs including pepper and a little salt through the flour.
3. Cut each chicken breast lengthwise, so that it forms a fan, but is still attached at one end. Put them through the flour, so that they are well covered (also between the 'fingers' of the 'fan').
4. Heat half the butter with two tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan. Turn the heat up to medium-high so that the fat is hot enough. Fry the chicken fillets until seared (2-3 minutes).
5. Then turn the heat low and remove the chicken from the pan and keep it warm in aluminium foil.
6. Put the rest of the butter in the frying pan and let it melt. Add all the fresh herbs, the clove of garlic (pressed) and the chilli peppers. Stir well.
7. Add stock, wine and lemon juice so that there is really a layer of 2-3 centimetres of liquid in the pan. You can add extra stock or wine. Let everything boil up.
9. You can turn off the heat and leave the chicken in the pan. Then it will continue to cook for a while. Then, just before serving, reheat the chicken with the liquid. Make sure there is enough liquid left. Otherwise, add it.
10. Serve hot with the herb sauce, delicious with green beans with some olive oil and mint.
Nice to know
Recipes often get different names with me. A cake with blackberries and apples became 'slider cake' when it slid down the table. The apple cake my mother used to make is now called 'mother cake'. That is how this dish was christened 'Pollo Balotelli'. The namesake? Sam de Wit. We share with him (his sister Janna and mother Petra) a love of food. Sam likes to cook. He wanted to make something special for once, so I taught him to make Pollo alle Erbe. What a complicated business with those names", Sam, a great football fan, must have thought. It became Pollo Balotelli and I caught on that he still impresses with it.
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