- Hey, I'm John Kanell, and
today on "Preppy Kitchen," we're making a delicious
chicken cordon bleu, so let's get started! First off, preheat your oven to 375. And now in a shallow baking dish, I'm adding 1 1/4 cups panko bread crumbs. This chicken has a
golden crunchy exterior, and that's coming from the panko, and, of course, a bit of butter. To the bread crumbs, I'm
adding 1/2 teaspoon salt, along with 1/4 teaspoon
cracked black pepper. If you want to add some more fun spices, have at it, this is your dish. And, really, this could
be packed with flavor on the outside and inside. I have about two tablespoons
of melted butter. Just drizzle that over the panko. Mm! We're gonna give this a good toss so all the breadcrumbs are nicely coated. It's so much easier with your hands. For the next step, you're gonna want a
(whispers) sharp knife, so... Really, dull knives are not
your friend in the kitchen. If you have a sharpener, I
would have at it for a minute, just so you can do this next step easily. One chicken breast, and
we're gonna butterfly it. My mom loves butterflying chicken breasts. There's so many different
fillings to add in. Just go right down the middle, but you're not cutting it into two. You're stopping at one of the long ends so it can become a book of
chicken, a chicken book. You can open your chicken breast up, and just cut a little bit more if needed. It's easier to cut less than cut more. You're gonna butterfly your
remaining chicken breasts. And if you want to scale this recipe up, you can double it so easily
and feed a big group of people. Grab another sheet of
parchment paper, or plastic, and we're gonna pound
this to a nice even 1/4". You want this to bake really evenly, so nothing's over baking and
nothing is raw (chuckles). So gently pound. If you really go to town,
you'll break the breast. This was one of the dishes my mom would make us occasionally, but I will tell you, her
favorite is chicken a large duck, which I can make on the
channel if you guys want. Now for the fun part, actually the pounding was pretty fun too, but the filling is gonna be great as well. We're gonna grab Swiss cheese. And I want to make this clear. Some of these chicken breasts are massive and some of them are a normal size, so you can totally cover the chicken with as much filling as you want. Here I have a couple of gaps. I'm just gonna add Swiss
cheese just like that, adding a nice amount of Swiss cheese to give some good coverage. And then it's time for the ham. You can use any ham you want. If you wanted to go and get that delicious spiral
cut ham with a sugar crust and have slices of that in
there, mm, I love that for you. Did you know that people
speak French in Switzerland? This is actually a Swiss dish and the name first appears in the '40s, it's a type of stuffed
schnitzel basically before that, and I think it became popular or became known here in the '60s. Now we're gonna roll this up and you can use some toothpicks if you want to just close this up so we know that it's not gonna unroll. It's probably gonna be okay,
but who wants to take chances? And don't forget to remove the toothpick at the end of this video. Don't forget! So when my mom made
tacos, we deep fried them and you put the meat filling on the inside and you closed the tortilla up and she and her sisters would
always toothpick them closed and then you just had to remember to take the toothpick out at
the very end of the deep fry. It's one of my childhood memories. My chicken's all rolled up. Now we're gonna set up a
dredging station and get to work. So we already have one
shallow dish with our panko, that's ready to go, but in the first one, I want about 1/3 cup flour. Just gonna eyeball that. In my second dish, you probably guessed, two eggs beaten, one and two. Just give these a little whisk. Now we're gonna take our chicken breasts through the dredging station and they're gonna end up on a rimmed baking sheet
with a wire rack inside. That's what they're gonna bake in, so it's nice and crisp all the way around. Roll this in the flour and
then we're gonna move along. A lot of us have our chicken dishes that we make on repeat and
we get kind of bored of them, so I was like, "hmm, what else can I make, but it's still gonna be easy?" And this packs such a punch with a flavor. The sauce we make comes together in less time than the baking, of course, so it all is ready at the same time. Only has a few ingredients that you can get at the
grocery store really easily, and it's delicious! So after a little roll in the egg wash, the egg is the glue that's gonna hold our
delicious panko breadcrumbs on. End up in the panko mixture and we're just going to
completely coat this, so that's the golden ticket. And these breadcrumbs,
because of the butter, are gonna pick up so much
color and look really beautiful when they end up baking. It's best to scoop the panko on and press it down so you
have a really great layer. This guy goes right over there. If you're worried about
these guys unraveling, my mom's secret is this
to have the cut side down where you'd have the toothpick so gravity will just hold
it together during the bake and it'll firm up, it won't fall apart or anything like that. This is just my insurance policy. All right, these guys are almost
ready to go into the oven. I'm gonna have to sprinkle
the last of the panko crumbs right over the top so they
get all of those buttery, crunchy, delicious moments. And now these can go into the oven, 375 for 35 to 45 minutes. It totally depends on the
size of your chicken breast, your oven, and the
temperature of the chicken. I'm gonna bake mine until
a thermometer reads 165 at the deepest part of the chicken. Keep an eye on it. (cheerful music) Just before your chicken's ready, we are gonna make a delicious
and really easy cream sauce, starting off with two
tablespoons of butter right into a pan. Place that over medium heat
and get it nice and melty. Mm, melty! While the butter melts,
you should make sure you have everything else
measured out for this because it's really quick. Two tablespoons of flour,
two tablespoons of Dijon and 1/4 cup grated Parmesan. And don't forget one cup of milk. Bonus points if you warm it up. All right, butter's all melted. I'm gonna sprinkle the flour in and cook for about a minute
while I whisk, whisk, whisk. This is a roux. It's the base of almost
every delicious sauce, including a nice white bechamel sauce, which is basically what we're making with some a delicious additions in the form of mustard and Parmesan. All right, so, ooh, mix, mix, mix. I want to cook the flour so it doesn't have that flour taste, and it's also safe to eat, and this will be the amazing base that thickens everything up. Okay, now slowly drizzle the milk in while whisking vigorously. Whisk, whisk! If you see some lumps, don't worry. That's what your whisk is for. Whisk your little heart out! Once your milk is fully incorporated and those little lumps are gone, we're gonna add our Dijon and
then really whisk vigorously. I don't want the sauce to break and the whisking is the key to make that magical dream
come true of no breaking sauce. Mm! Look how nice this is. I'm reducing heat to medium-low. And now we're gonna whisk
constantly for a few minutes, just until it's thickened up nicely. Really, it depends on you. This sauce could be ready to serve. It's just a little bit more slack. If you want it to be a bit more tight and kind of cheesy in consistency, you're gonna cook it down
for a couple more minutes. As soon as you're happy with the consistency of your
sauce, take it off heat. And we're gonna take our
little angel flakes of Parmesan and just whisk those in and
they'll melt right away. Do you see how easy that sauce was? That was like, "oh, it's done!" And now we have a delicious,
fancy-seeming chicken that has the breaded crispy
crust, that gooey center, with this amazing flavorful
white cream sauce. Right out of the oven, pour
the sauce onto the chicken and you're ready to enjoy! Mm! That is perfectly cooked chicken with that gooey cheese inside, a kick of flavor from the ham, and those breadcrumbs are
crunchy and magnificent. I hope you get a chance
to make this recipe and if you like this video,
check out my dinner playlist!
