Every weekend, my wife and I like to make a big meal that we can use for lunches throughout the work week. Usually it’s something like spaghetti or lasagna, or sometimes a big pot of soup. This weekend, we decided to make some chicken prosciutto and roast some scallop squash we bought at a roadside stand on Friday afternoon.

This recipe is like a hybrid between chicken saltimbocca and cordon bleu.

I got the chicken recipe from Simply Recipes, who got it from The Dean and DeLuca Cookbook.

I thought the egg wash was a little strange, so we made three breasts with the egg wash and three without. There wasn’t much of a taste difference between them, but there was a difference in texture. I’ll leave the egg out next time. Prosciutto is kind of like plastic wrap. You don’t need a binding agent to keep it stuck to the chicken. Here, you can see the sage beneath the prosciutto:

Here’s how it turned out after I topped it with cheese and added the sauce:

This dish had too much butter for my taste. Next time, I’ll mix a half stick of butter with olive oil for the frying, and then cut the sauce ingredients in half. This is so rich with butter that it doesn’t need a sauce. A glaze would work fine. Just reduce it and toss the chicken back in the pan for a few seconds to coat. Then top the glazed chicken with the fontina cheese and warm it in the oven. That way you won’t have to watch the butter separate from the wine reduction as it cools on your plate.

Scallop squash (also known as pattypan squash) tastes like a cross between yellow straight neck and butternut. We sliced, salted and pressed the pieces for about an hour to draw out some of the moisture. Next, we wiped the pieces down and tossed them with a mixture of olive oil, lemon juice, chicken stock and fresh herbs (thyme and parsley). We roasted it under the broiler for about 20-25 minutes, just until the pieces became tender and started to brown:

It had a mellow taste and was the consistency of warm brie. It was great all by itself, but next time we’ll probably toss it with some sliced eggplant and cherry tomatoes, kind of like a lazy man’s ratatouille.

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