INVOLTINI WITH MUSHROOMS AND POMEGRANATE SEEDS

The inspiration for this comes from the involtini con pancetta e salvia recipe in this month's Conad supermarket chain's free magazine. Their involtini are made with chicken breast escalopes and filled with chestnuts and mirtilli [whortleberries]. Well, I can't stand chestnuts and couldn't find any mirtilli, so I used a mushroom mixture and what has accidentally become my ingredient of the month - pomegranate seeds.

The Conad butcher, pleased that someone was going to cook something from the magazine - I didn't tell him of my sabotage plans - suggested I use skinless chicken thigh fillets instead of breasts and, although there were thin strips of pancetta already on display on the counter, he decided these were not thin enough and cut some more especially. This kind of service and advice always cheers me up and he hasn't been wrong yet!

Anyway, this is what I ended up doing:

First, soften about 200 gr sliced mushrooms in 125 gr butter and add a handful of pane grattugiato or fresh breadcrumbs plus some chopped fresh sage.  Stir well and take off the heat. Lay the fillets - I used 6 -  out on a chopping board and spread the mushroom mixture over them. Distribute the contents of half a pack of pancetta dolce cubes over [about 85 gr] and sprinkle over some pomegranate seeds, a little ground cinnamon and about half teasp ground cloves. Add a few twists of pepper and some seasalt, roll up the fillets in 2 slices of pancetta each and secure with cooking string. Tuck a sage leaf into the top of each involtino. Brown them on all sides in 4 tablesp olive oil in a wide pan, then add a glass of white wine.  When it evaporates, add 200 ml chicken or vegetable stock and some more pomegranate seeds. Bring to the boil, then simmer for about 40 mins, turning the involtini over after 20 mins.  Take the involtini out and place on a serving dish and snip the string off, then quickly add a roux of a dessertspoon of butter and the same quantity of flour to the sauce. Stir to dissolve and thicken the sauce, pour over the involtini and serve.  [You can slice them to serve if you like but I'm not good at slicing meat thinly and, in the absence of one of those meat-slicing contraptions that most Italian women have, would make a terrible mess.] Decorate with even more pomegranate seeds if you wish.

Buon appetito. [I think I've used up all those pomegranates now!]