Chicken breast pockets with feta cheese and tomato sauce

Chicken breasts with Italian flavors

Ingredients

• chicken breast 250-300 g
• feta cheese 100 g
• lemon juice 1 tbsp
• 1 clove garlic
• hot pepper pepperoncino (optional) 1 pc
• basil greens
• vegetable oil for frying
• salt
• freshly ground pepper
• For tomato sauce with olives
• tomatoes 3 pcs
• bell pepper 100 g
• olives 100 g
• dry white wine (optional) 30 ml
• chicken / vegetable broth or water 100 ml
• basil greens
• salt
• freshly ground pepper

Directions

1. Wash and dry the chicken breast.
2. Cut the breast crosswise into 2-3 pieces.
3. Place the breast pieces in a bag or cover with cling film and beat off (not very thin).
4. Fold the breast into a bowl, season with freshly ground pepper, drizzle with lemon juice and marinate for 20 minutes.
5. For filling.
6. Mash "Feta" cheese with a fork, add chopped basil, pepper a little and stir (do not salt, as the cheese is salty!).
7. Arrange the prepared chops on a cutting board.
8. Put the feta filling with basil on one edge of the chop.
9. Cover the filling with the second edge of the chop.
10. Fasten the edges with toothpicks.
11. Lightly salt and pepper the resulting "pocket" outside.
12. Heat olive oil or vegetable oil in a frying pan, and fry a little crushed garlic clove and pepperoncino pepper (you can skip the pepper if you don't want to add a little spiciness to the dish).
13. Remove garlic and pepper from the pan.
14. Put chicken pockets in well-heated garlic-pepper oil and fry for 2 minutes on each side until golden brown.
15. Transfer the fried "pockets" to a greased baking dish.
16. Place the dish with "pockets" in the oven preheated to 180 ° C for 8 minutes and bring to readiness.
17. Prepare tomato sauce with olives.
18. Wash the bell peppers, cut in half, remove the seed box and cut into cubes.
19. Wash the tomatoes, remove the skin (by making cross-shaped cuts on the tomatoes and dipping them into boiling water).
20. Dice the tomatoes or grind them in a blender into a puree.
21. Drain the liquid from the olives and cut into rings.
22. In the same pan, and in the same oil where the breasts were fried (if necessary, you can add a little more oil to the pan), fry the bell peppers for 3-4 minutes.
23. Add the tomatoes, season with salt, pepper and simmer the tomato mass for 5 minutes over medium or high heat to evaporate excess liquid.
24. Pour in the wine and cook the sauce for 3-4 minutes so that the alcohol completely evaporates (if you wish, you can skip adding wine, but add olives immediately and then cook according to the recipe).
25. Reduce heat to minimum and add chopped olives to tomato sauce.
26. Cover the pan with the sauce and cook the sauce over low heat for 3-5 minutes.
27. If the sauce is too thick, it can be slightly diluted with broth or water, to the desired consistency, and heated for another 1-2 minutes.
28. Remove the prepared sauce from the heat, add the chopped basil leaves and stir
29. Put the chicken breasts on a dish and pour over the tomato sauce.