Chicken Alouette

I made this on Tuesday night.  It is one of those recipes you definitely don't need to make, but is fun to make.  It is from one of the cookbooks my mother-in-law just sent me, Southern Living Our Best Christmas Recipes.  It is the Christmas season at our house; our tree is up and our Christmas decorations are all over the place.  But I think you could make this any time of the year and the Southern Living Police would not come and get you.  Although, I am not from the south so I cannot state that with 100% certainty.  For this recipe, you use puff pastry dough and wrap up chicken breasts, then braid narrow strips of puff pastry dough to decorate the tops of the bundles.  In their picture all the bundles are symmetrical and of the same size.  Of my 6, 4 were oddly shaped, 1 looked like a kite, and the last one looked like a candy corn.  But the kids and I had fun making them.  Also, "alouette" means "lark" in French, according to the reputable website Wikipedia.  So the real name of this recipe is Chicken Lark.  Mmmmm sounds good, right?

Chicken Alouette
17.4 oz pkg puff pastry sheets, thawed
4 oz chive and onion flavored cream cheese
6 small boneless skinless chicken breast halves
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
1 egg, beaten
1 tbsp water
Kale leaves, optional (and left out by me)

Unfold pastry sheets and roll each into a 14x12 inch rectangle on a lightly floured surface.  Cut first sheet into 4 rectangles.  Cut second sheet in half, then cut one of the halves into two rectangles.  Set large rectangle aside (carefully because it's probably really thin by now).  Shape each small rectangle into an oval by trimming off corners (if you want to give these to your children to play with, along with some cookie cutters, they will like it); spread pastry ovals evenly with cream cheese.

Sprinkle chicken breasts with salt and pepper; place one in center of each pastry oval.  Lightly moisten edges of pastry with water.  Fold ends over chicken; fold sides over, and pinch to seal.  Place bundles, seam side down, on a lightly greased baking sheet.

Cut large rectangle crosswise into 36 strips (about 1/4" wide)(I didn't count or measure and didn't have enough but it was fine).  Braid 3 strips together (way harder than it sounds)(have your daughter help you so husband cannot determine which ones you did and which ones a child did), and place crosswise over chicken bundles, tucking ends under.  Repeat with remaining strips, making crosses on each bundle.  Cover and chill up to 2 hours, if desired.

Combine egg and water.  Brush egg over pastry bundles.  Bake at 400 on lower oven rack 25 minutes or until golden.  Arrange chicken bundles on kale-lined serving platter, if desired (ummm, no).  6 servings.

We had this with cranberry jelly (because we love it and had two cans left over from Thanksgiving) and rice.  Nathan did not like this because of the cream cheese, but it really wasn't that much.  Everybody else thought these were great.  So it was definitely a fun recipe to make, but not one that will become a regular part of our rotation.  I purposely chose to make this on a day that we had nothing to do in the afternoon, and it took from about 3 pm to 5:15ish to do all the steps, including thawing the puff pastry sheets.  The kids had a lot of fun, so that counts for a lot.