Chicken Rolls Stuffed with Vegetables is a very visually attractive dish. Colourful vegetables are centred and rolled in a chicken fillet. The sweet teriyaki-flavoured sauce coating the chicken rolls makes this dish so tasty.
Don't forget to see the section 'MEAL IDEAS' below the recipe card! It gives you a list of dishes that I have already posted and this recipe that can make up a complete meal. I hope it is of help to you.
- 2 boneless whole chicken legs (skin on, note 1)
- 50g/1.8oz carrot cut into 7mm/¼" thick, 6-7cm/2⅜-2¾” long sticks
- 50g/1.8oz burdock cut into 7mm/¼" thick, 6-7cm/2⅜-2¾” long sticks or 3mm/⅛" thick match sticks (note 2)
- 30g/1.1oz green beans stem trimmed, blanched
- 100ml/3.4fl oz dashi stock
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- 1 tsp cooking sake
- 1 tsp mirin
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp cooking sake
- 1 tbsp mirin
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp vinegar
-
Put Simmering Sauce ingredients, carrot sticks, and burdock sticks in a shallow pot. Put a lid on and bring it to a boil.
-
Reduce the heat to low and cook for about 5 minutes until the vegetables are almost cooked through. Drain and let them cool.
-
Cut the beans to the length similar to the width of the chicken.
-
Randomly poke the chicken skin with a fork. This will allow the sauce to penetrate into the flesh better.
-
Place the fillet on a workbench, skin-side down. Where the meat is thicker than the other parts of the fillet, cut horizontally outward without completely cutting it off so that the top part of the meat opens like butterflying (note 3). This will give the fillet an even thickness.
-
Position the chicken with the drumstick end of the fillet towards you, then place half each of the beans, carrot, and burdock on the fillet closer to you. Spread the vegetables evenly crosswise.
-
Starting from your end of the fillet, roll the fillet tightly with vegetables inside. You may need to push the vegetables back inside on both ends as you roll.
-
Place 2 layers of 30cm/11¾"-long aluminium foil on a workbench and place the chicken roll on one end of the foil.
-
Wrap the chicken in the foil by rolling, twisting both ends of the foil as you roll so that you can prevent the vegetables from getting squeezed out from both ends of the roll. Secure both ends of the foil by twisting and bending.
-
Place the wrapped chicken rolls in a frying pan and place a lid on. Turn the heat on to low and cook for 7 minutes.
-
Turn the rolls about 120 degrees, put the lid back on and continue to cook for 5 minutes (note 4).
-
Turn the rolls about 120 degrees again in the same direction as the first turn and cook another 5 minutes with the lid on (note 4).
-
Turn the heat off and leave for 20 minutes or so, with the lid on.
-
Remove the lid and peel the foil off the chicken rolls in the pan so that you can capture the juice coming out of the chicken in the pan.
-
Mix the Tare ingredients well, ensuring that the sugar is dissolved.
-
Add the tare to the pan with the chicken rolls and turn the heat on to medium.
-
When the sauce starts boiling, roll the chicken occasionally so that the surface of the chicken gets coated with the sauce.
-
Continue to cook until the sauce condenses and the sticky large bubbles start rising, then turn the heat off (note 5).
-
Let the chicken rolls cool down to room temperature.
-
Slice each roll to 1cm/⅜” thick and serve.
1. The whole leg of chicken is called chicken Maryland in Australia, but in the US, it is a quarter chicken, i.e., whole chicken leg with the thigh and the drumstick portion together.
I used fillets of about 250g/0.4lb each with skin on. The skin gives the dish more flavour but fillets without skin is OK too.
Like me, if you can only find a leg with the bone in, I am afraid you will need to remove the bones. Check out one of the YouTube demonstrations of How to Debone a Chicken Leg and Thigh.
You can use breast fillet if you prefer, but the cooked chicken might be a bit dry. You need to butterfly the entire breast fillet by cutting it horizontally so that the fillet becomes thinner and the surface area larger.
2. If you can find a fresh burdock root, that is great. Burdock is not in season where I live at the moment, so I used frozen burdock that was cut into matchsticks suitable for Kinpira Gobō.
3. Try to shape the fillet to become square or rectangle. This makes rolling of the fillet easier.
4. It doesn’t have to be a 120 degree-turn. You just want to turn them so that the surface of the chicken gets cooked more evenly. If you are turning more frequently, the cooking time between the turns need to be reduced, i.e., total cooking time is about 17 minutes.
5. I condensed the sauce until the sauce became sticky. If you prefer, you can turn off the heat earlier, leaving some sauce so that you can pour it over when serving.
6. Nutrition per serving, assuming 4 servings.
serving: 224g calories: 365kcal fat: 23g (35%) saturated fat: 6.7g (34%) trans fat: 0.0g polyunsaturated fat: 5.1g monounsaturated fat: 9.7g cholesterol: 129mg (43%) sodium: 444mg (19%) potassium: 449mg (13%) carbohydrates: 7.9g (3%) dietary fibre: 1g (4%) sugar: 4.4g protein: 27g vitamin a: 68% vitamin c: 9.4% calcium: 2.3% iron: 13%