Chicken and Prosciutto Club

Total Time: 20 minutes
Serves 4

• 4 chicken cutlets
• 8 slices prosciutto or thin sliced ham
• salt
• pepper
• mayonnaise
• rolls
• arugula
• sliced tomato, optional
• olive tapenade, optional

Bake prosciutto or ham on a baking sheet at 400ºF until crisp, 8 to 10 minutes.  Season the chicken cutlets with salt and pepper.  Cook in olive oil over medium-high heat until golden.  Form sandwiches with rolls, mayonnaise, olive tapenade, arugula, sliced tomato, chicken and prosciutto or ham.

This has been the most challenging sandwich to make.  I know it doesn’t sound difficult but it has been finding all the ingredients that has been a little tough for me.  The original recipe comes from Real Simple’s 10 Ideas for: Chicken Cutlets.  Along the way I have made some substitutions that have actually stuck and just may be better than the original.

Let’s see.  The first time I made it I couldn’t find prosciutto or olive tapenade.  I knew what prosciutto was, and half-heartedly skimmed the deli for it but no luck.  Since prosciutto is an Italian ham, I grabbed some thin sliced ham to use instead.  As for the olive tapenade, I figured I’d find that near the olives.  Nope.  So I pulled out my phone and hit the internet.  Does anyone else do that?  Pull over to the side of an aisle and look up ingredients or measurements on their phone while shopping?  As for the tapenade I was only finding recipes, but was too impatient to spend time going through them to buy ingredients.  Heck, I’m not an olive fan anyway so what did I care.

I made the sandwich with the ham and no olive tapenade or sliced tomato and it was delicious.  The oil mixed with the mayo for a fabulous sauce consistency.  However, I can’t deny that it did seem like it could use a little something.  I vowed the next time I would give the olive tapenade a go.

So this past week I took another stab at the recipe.  This time I found the prosciutto I did in fact overlook at the deli the last time.  And I had all of the ingredients to make the olive tapenade.  Or so I thought.  I started to get all of the ingredients out to make the sandwich and realized I didn’t have the olives.  The store was sold out on my weekly trip and I had made a second trip back to pick up a couple more things meaning to get the olives then, but obviously forgot.  Thankfully I realized the missing olives before I started to make the tapenade with the other ingredients.

I did proceed to make the sandwich, this time with the prosciutto but minus the olive tapenade.  I have to say though that my first attempt was much better than this second.  Prosciutto is very, very salty.  Aren’t olives salty, too?  I can’t even imagine what the original version of this sandwich will taste like.  I wasn’t a fan of the prosciutto.  I prefer just the regular ham.

I do hope to make the olive tapenade sooner than later since I have almost all of the ingredients now.  Here’s hoping the third time is the charm, eh?  Maybe I’ll prove my speculations wrong.  If not, at least I know have a winner with my first seemingly half-hearted attempt!

PS – If you didn’t notice, I recommend serving this with a salad (with homemade croutons . . . ).