Oven Roasted Chicken Tenders Saltimbocca with Parmesan, Garlic and Sage Cream Sauce

Ok, I am going to be merciless on this recipe.  I discovered, after I bought the ingredients for it, that it was from Rachael Ray.  I can't stand her, and if you would like to read why, you can check out the post Tilapia With Balsamic Browned Butter And Creamy Farfalle With Bacon, Tomato to hear me rant about her:).  Well, I decide to make it work.  It looks pretty plain, so I decide to make a Parmesan, garlic and sage cream sauce to go with it.  I had some fresh sage on hand, and I remember loving a pork saltimbocca I had as a seasonal special at Stonewood that  had a similar cream sauce on it.  So while the devil lady's chicken tenders are cooking, I decide to improvise a sauce.  The chicken was ok, we guess, we were too busy slathering it with the uber tasty sauce I made.  (I know it's a bit immodest, but that wasn't my summation, it was my husbands;)  I have an additional dig to make at Ms. Ray, the recipe, which I copied exactly calls for 8 tenders and 8 sage leaves but asks you to but 2 leaves on each tender.  I don't know what kind of quasi math she is invoking, but it makes my brain want to take a little trip to visit her and bitch slap her brain.  Math issues aside, it wasn't a bad recipe, but I wouldn't have liked it nearly as much, or even planned to make it again, if it weren't for the sauce I made up.  This sauce is a keeper and would be great on pork too. When I asked for a rating out of 5 stars, the husband said the sauce was a 5, but he couldn't say about the chicken by it's self since it was covered with sauce.  The boy said he would give it a 4 and I am somewhere in the middle.


Oven Roasted Chicken Tenders Saltimbocca

8    chicken tenders
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
8    leaves sage  (I am assuming that she meant 16 and can't add or meant one on each tender which is what I did since I was making a sage sauce)
8 sl Prosciutto di Parma
2 T  extra-virgin olive oil
4    wedges lemon
     
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
Season chicken with salt and pepper, top each tender with 2 leaves of
sage. Wrap each tender with a slice of ham. Coat the tenders liberally
in olive oil, a couple of tablespoons.
Arrange meat on baking sheet on parchment paper and bake until crispy
and firm, 10 to 12 minutes.

Alternatively, skewer the tenders and serve with lemon wedges on a
plate as first or second course

Parmesan, Garlic & Sage Cream Sauce

2 T  Unsalted Butter
1/4 lg Onion,Chopped
2 T  Flour
2 ea Garlic,Minced
6 T  Chicken Broth,Low Sodium
2/3 c  Heavy Cream
1/3 c  Milk
1 c  Parmesan,Grated (grate your own, don't use the green tube stuff!)
2 T  Sage,Fresh, Chiffonade
Salt And White Pepper

Melt the butter in a small sauce pan over medium heat
Add the onion and sauté until soft, about 5 minutes
Add the flour and cook, stirring constantly for about 3 minutes
Add the broth and cook and stir until incorporated
Realize you forgot to add the garlic right before adding the flour and
add it now
Cook the garlic 1-2 minutes
add the cream and cook, stirring, for a few minutes, until well
incorporated (at this point you can reduce the heat if it is spattering
at you)
add the milk and stir to mix
add the parm and stir until well melted
reduce heat to med-low
Add the sage and season with salt and white pepper to taste
If it is too thick , you can thin it with some more milk or I used
about a tablespoon of pasta cooking water.