Dinner: Chicken, Cheese & Leek Jalousie

This week for dinner I made a Chicken, Cheese and Leek Jalousie.

If you are like me I had never heard of a Jalousie before. But ... it sure looked good in my recipe book!

This recipe is from: The Every Day CHICKEN Cookbook.

Here's a photo of the end product! Yummy

Okay, first thing's first. Get out the puff pastry (start defrosting), recipe book and your leeks.


Here are the ingredients you will need:

1 chicken roasted and chopped (or 2-3 chicken breasts)
2 large leeks, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves crushed
3 tbs butter
1 1/2 cups button mushrooms
1 cup cream cheese
1 rind of lemon
3 tbs parsley
1 package puff pastry (2 blocks)
1 egg, beaten
salt and pepper

Step 1: Saute' leeks and garlic in butter for 10 minutes

-For a great "how to" video on how to clean and chop leeks go HERE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm6XGDwjJQA

I had never cooked with leeks before and I was surprised at how easy it was to clean and prepare them!

Step 2: Stack the unrolled blocks of pastry on top of each other and roll out on a floured work surface. They should roll out to approximately 14x10 inches.

TIP- Try to roll out the right size! I could have rolled mine out a little more than they are pictured below.

Step 3: Combine a cooled leek, garlic and mushroom mixture to the chicken. Add cream cheese, lemon rind, parsley and salt and pepper

Step 4: Spoon the filling onto the pastry, leaving a generous 3-4 inches on each side as well as the top and bottom.



Step 5: Cut the pastry diagonally upwards at 3/4 inch intervals at the sides of the filling like this.




Step 6: Brush the edges of pastry with the beaten egg. Pull pastry strips across the chicken mixture and braid the pastry by alternating sides. Seal the top and bottom edges.


Step 7: Glaze the top with beaten egg. Allow to rest a few minutes while the oven heats to 400 degrees. Bake for 15 minutes. Then, reduce temperature to 375 and bake for another 15 minutes or until pastry is golden brown.



Allow pastry to sit for about 10 minutes and then slice and serve!


THE FEEDBACK: 8 out of 10!


Tips: We really enjoyed this but would tweak the ingredients a bit next time.

First, the recipe called for mushrooms which I did not have on hand. I would include mushrooms next time for sure.
Second, I would go easy on both the leeks and the cream cheese next time. The cream cheese flavor seemed to overpower the other ingredients so I would probably use only 1/4 block or none at all. The leeks could also be cut down significantly.
Third, I think we would experiment with a number of "pizza" types of ingredients and cheese!

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