Strudel, but not for your toaster.

The finished dish.

As Germany slowly beat the USA soccer team into a scoreless trance, I am reminded that I never posted our main course from our Austrian dinner a month or so back.  Normally I would just move on, but this was so good and such an unusual and fun thing to make that I have to post it.  The steps are pretty basic: you make a mousse out of chicken breast and cream in a food processor, you blanch some cabbage leaves, you wrap the cabbage leaves around uncooked chicken breast, spoon a generous dollop of the mousse on top, then wrap in phyllo dough and bake.  As Nigella always says, there's a difference between time consuming and hard, this takes a bit of time but it's not hard.  I served it over a puree of celery root and parsnips, which were boiled in some cream and then pureed with a stick blender and some butter.  But honestly a salad or some sautéed greens or peas would be just great alongside.  Give it a shot when the weather cools down this fall.  And once again, this came from the fantastic cookbook Neue Cuisine by Kurt Gutenbrunner

Cabbage-Wrapped-Chicken Strudel
Ingredients
8 large cabbage leaves (use either green cabbage or Savoy cabbage if you can find it)
5 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
2 ice cubes
2 cups heavy cream
24 frozen phyllo sheets, thawed (if they are the very large sheets, use only 12)
6 tablespoons unsalted butter (clarified, unsalted butter if you have it)
salt
pepper
Preparation
1.  Prepare the cabbage leaves:  bring a large pot of water to boil, add a tablespoon of salt.  Fill a large bowl with ice water.  Add the cabbage leaves 1 or 2 at a time to the boiling water for a couple minutes, then put them in the ice water.  Once all leaves have been blanched, lay them out on some paper towels and pat them dry.  If the center rib of the leaf is really thick, remove it.

2.  Prepare the mousse:  place a medium bowl inside a large bowl filled with ice water.  Cut 1 chicken breast into 1-inch cubes and add to a food processor, season with a 1/2 teaspoon of salt and several grinds of fresh black pepper, then add the ice cubes.  Pulse the processor for at least 30 seconds or until the mixture is well chopped (could be up to a minute depending on your device).  Then, turn the processor on and gradually add the cream through the funnel.  Keep adding the cream until the mixture turns a light pink and has thickened to a mousse.  Scoop the mousse out into the small bowl that is in the large bowl with ice water, or put the bowl in the fridge to keep the mousse from separating.

Finished mousse should look like this, pale pink and thick.

3.  Prepare the phyllo:  If you have very large sheets of phyllo, cut the 12 sheets in half so that you have 24 sheets that are uniform in size.  Stack them and cover them with a damp cloth.

4.  Prepare the chicken strudel:  Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with parchment.  Take 1 sheet of the phyllo, brush with the melted butter.  Repeat with 5 more sheets, stacking them as you go.

Kevin brushing the cut phyllo sheets with clarified butter.

Then, set one chicken breast in the center of one of the cabbage leaves. Add 3 tablespoons of the mousse on top of the chicken and then wrap the leaf around the breast.  If the leaves are small, just place one under the breast, add the mousse, and then one on top - tucking it around the breast if you can.  Place the wrapped breast about one inch from the side of the stacked, 6 phyllo sheets, leaving a half-inch or so on the top or bottom as well.  Roll the breast and phyllos sheets over several times until the whole thing is wrapped in phyllo.  Tuck in the ends.  Place each strudel on to the parchment-lined pan as you go.

Place the cabbage-wrapped breasts on the stacks and fold over until you reach the end.

5.  Brush the strudels with the melted butter and sprinkle over some salt and pepper.  Put the sheet in the oven and bake 20 minutes.  Take them out and check to make sure the chicken is cooked through by slicing into one of the strudels.  It took me about 25 minutes total, the phyllo should be nice and golden brown as well.  Let cool for a few minutes before serving.

These are ready for the oven.

Note:  The recipe for the mousse is more than enough if you want to do this for 6 or 8 people, just add more phyllo sheets and keep going until you have enough for each person at your table.