Pont-l'Évêque and Broccoli stuffed Chicken Breast with a Spicy Mushroom Tomato Sauce

This is what I made last night. It's the second time I've made stuffed chicken breast and the only time I've wrapped it in bread crumbs. I was really worried that it would fall apart, as I stuffed it quite full, but magnificently it didn't (although one breast did leak some cheese in the oven!). I had a nice walk out yesterday in the first day of mediocre weather to the grocer's and butcher's to get my ingredients. I would recommend a butcher for the chicken breasts opposed to the supermarket as the breasts in the butcher's tend to be bigger and juicier. I served this with green beans, but any other green would be a fine accompaniment. As the breasts are stuffed quite full and the sauce is rather heavy I wouldn't recommend potatoes, however if you wished to make the sauce lighter and think you could eat that much you could do some tatties! I used Pont-l'Évêque cheese because that's what we had in the fridge, but this would be equally as lovely with Mozzarella, Camembert or other cheeses. I got the idea to do this from this James Martin Recipe, I used his instructions on how to cook the breast: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/mozzarella-stuffed_90052.

 I served mine with the sauce over the breast, but Paddy prefers his sauce separate, so at least you can see the nicely browned bread crumbs!

Ingredients (serves 2):

Enough of Alice's Basic Tomato Sauce for two, with added mushrooms (I used brown closed cup) and peas (find this recipe on the basics page at the top right of the blog)
2 Juicy Breasts
1/2 Broccoli Floret, boiled/steamed and finely chopped
2 Generous Slices of Cheese
1 Beaten Egg
Plain flour (to coat) sifted onto a plate
Bread crumbs (I used wholemeal ones that I bought from the grocers, but panko or chip shop ones will do) also to coat, poured onto another plate
Oil for shallow frying (Vegetable, Sunflower etc.)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Method:

1. You can prepare the tomato sauce in advance, or cook it as you go along as I did, just make sure it's hot for service.
2. To make the stuffed breasts: preheat your oven to 200 degrees, season the cheese slices and the cooked broccoli and have them to hand. Heat the oil for shallow frying in a chip pan on a medium-high heat. Use a heavy based sauce pan BE VERY CAREFUL, do not leave this unattended as hot oil is dangerous and Fireman Sam says chip fires are the most common house fires.
3. Cut a slit in each breast and carefully cut around inside to create a 'pocket' (James Martin says this). Put in your slice of cheese then carefully pack in as much broccoli as you can.
4. Roll the breasts individually in the flour, then the egg, then the bread crumbs, making sure they are completely covered and coated in crumbs.
5. Next, gently lay each breast in the hot oil and cook for about two minutes on each side (the bread crumbs should be golden brown) then lift out with a slotted spatula and place onto a baking try and pop into the oven. This is the bit where I was worried they would fall apart, but the bread crumbs and frying seemed to bind the breasts well. You can deep fry them if you want like Martin's recipe suggests, but it just means using more oil, and they'll not need turning over.
6. Once the breasts have been in the oven for 20 minutes and are cooked through, but still juicy, make sure you have your accompaniments hot and ready (the sauce and green beans in my case) serve onto warmed plates in whatever fashion you wish. Enjoy your end product!  

 Inside the stuffed breast, aesthetically pleasing!

Cheese oozing out of the side.