During the week, the name of the game is getting food on the table in between work and soccer practice, but every once in a while, when the day has granted you an hour or two to yourself, the mood strikes to break out your monocle and top hat, and make something a little bit fancy.  Whether it’s for family, friends, or just for yourself – everyone needs to treat themselves to a high-class fare now and again.

But fancy doesn’t have to mean buying a $40 piece of meat and dousing it in truffle oil – chicken does high-falootin’ just as well as it does down home, and for a lot less.  It’s all in how you prepare it.

Chicken roulade is an excellent way to fancy up chicken.  All it takes is pounding the chicken thin – between sheets of thick plastic wrap is the easiest way – and wrapping ingredients inside.  Prosciutto or cheese with asparagus is particularly enjoyable.  To cook, fasten the roll with toothpicks, sear it on the outside starting at the seam, and finish it in the oven.

Along the same lines, stuffed chicken dishes such as Chicken Kiev are made in a similar fashion.  Chicken Kiev itself is made by wrapping a flattened chicken breast around a cold roll of compound butter (usually made with tarragon and parsley) and then dredged in flour and breaded.  It is then seared in a pan to brown the outside, and finished in the oven.  The trick to this dish is sealing it completely so that the butter flows out when you cut into the cooked chicken, and not when it’s in the oven.

So, you can see that getting fancy in the kitchen doesn’t have to take an entire day or paycheque to accomplish.  With a little creativity and fresh ingredients, it’s easy to make a meal seem like it’s come out of a 5-star kitchen.