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Petto Di Pollo Sorrentina

Tuesday night I improvised a little on dinner. I had pounded chicken breasts in the freezer, some left over mozzarella cheese, left over basil, and ample access to garden-fresh tomatoes that someone keeps bringing into work. The ingredients reminded me of an entrée I've had at Ristorante Farfalla, a great place in Estero, Florida near the in-laws. It's called Petto Di Pollo Sorrentina and is described on the menu as "Chicken Breast sauteed with sliced Tomatoes & fresh Homemade Mozzarella in a White Wine Sauce." I Googled it first, to see if perhaps there were any recipes out there to use as a guide, but all I found were restaurant menus, and each seemed to have very different ideas of what a "Sorrentina" dish would include. I know "Petto di Pollo" means breast of chicken, anyone know what "Sorrentina" means?

In any case, it sounds easy enough so I gave it a shot: I sautéed the chicken on each side and put it in an oven at 250 to keep it warm. I added 1 small chopped shallots and 4 cloves of minced garlic to the pan and sautéed them for a few minutes. I then deglazed the pan with some white wine (Beringer 2001 Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc) and let it reduce to almost nothing, and then added a can of chicken stock and tossed in some fresh springs of thyme, and let it further reduce for several minutes. While that was reducing, I took the chicken out of the oven, and arranged two thick slices of tomato on each breast, covered them liberally with cheese, and put them back in the oven at 350 to completely melt -- but not brown -- the cheese. To finish off the sauce I whisked in a couple tablespoons of butter which had been combined with flour. At this point I decided I had used too much garlic (which I had suspected from the start, but I thought there could never be too much garlic, right?) and so I ran the sauce through a sieve to filter out all the minced garlic.

I served it with linguine and a tossed salad. I was very proud of how colorful it was, although looking at the picture I can see the pasta needed parsley. The sauce definitely had far too much garlic. It almost had an acidic taste to it that at first you might think was lemon, but then you realized was garlic. Next time, more shallots, less garlic.