Chicken Stuffed Soft Pretzel

Alternate titles for this post were “Chicken Wellingzel” or “Chicken Pretzington” because it is basically a play on beef wellington, but with chicken instead of beef, and pretzel dough instead of puff pastry. This idea came to me out of nowhere, I have seen people crust chicken with the crumbs from the pretzel bag, but never seen anything like this. I really wanted a super delicious honey mustard to go with the pretzington, so I opted to make it myself, sort of following an Alton Brown mustard recipe. My friend John recently went to Poland to visit family(more on this in the future), and his relatives over there have a bee farm! He was able to smuggle in some fresh honey for me to use in this recipe.

Alton uses all yellow mustard seed, but I had these black ones laying around too.

The other spices in the mustard.

You should really use a spice grinder for this if you want it to be all powdered. I wanted the cracked dijon effect so I just did it in the food processor. Anyone else think this looks like dippin dots?

The liquid is some pickle juice, cider vinegar, and water.

You microwave it, then put it back in the food processor. This is when I added the honey. More on the recipe below.

I cut all the chicken breasts in half, AND pounded them out even flatter.

The pretzel dough has risen and is ready for use.

First I stuffed the chicken with sharp cheddar. I rolled it up and secured it with toothpicks.

Next, I seared the chicken on all sides. I made sure they cooked about half way through for 3 reasons. 1, to get the added brown flavor, 2, to seal in the cheese so I could remove the toothpicks before putting them into the dough, and 3, to make sure the chicken would cook fully in the mere 15 minutes the pretzel dough needed in the oven.

Roll out the dough and smear a quick brush of mustard on there. Then put the chicken in and roll them up!

The last minute genius idea was to make little pretzel knots on each end of the chicken. A little treat for the first and last bite!

If you remember my pretzel post, you need to boil the dough in baking soda and water before baking. Be careful pouring the baking soda cause the pot might boil over.

Just 30 seconds on each side.

They start smelling a lot like pretzels at this point. I wish I had pretzel salt, but I just used normal salt.

15 to 20 minutes in the oven and these things are BEGGING to be eaten!

Gahhhhh.

I thought the small amount of cheese wouldn’t be noticeable but it was actually a perfect compliment to the flavors

Everyone devoured these immediately!

Alton’s mustard recipe is here, but I ended up changing a lot.

Here is mine, based on his, it makes way too much, but I plan on eating it for the next 2 months:

1/2 cup yellow mustard seeds, 1/4 cup black or brown mustard seeds
1/2 cup yellow mustard powder
Tablespoon brown sugar
Tablespoon turmeric
Teaspoon garlic powder
Teaspoon paprika
Teaspoon salt
1/2 cup pickle juice
1/2 cup water
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup honey

Food process the seeds until broken a bit, then add everything (except honey) into a bowl and stir. Microwave for 1 minute. Food process everything. Add honey. Food process for at least 2 minutes. It will be pretty watery. Let it sit in the fridge overnight. The next day it has thickened up, food process again for awhile. Taste it and see what you need to add. want it sweeter? Add more honey. you may want to add more vinegar, pickle juice, or salt at this point also, but it is all up to your tastes.

To make the pretzel dough, the recipe is here. If you want to see another post just on pretzels, check out this one.

Then just cut the chicken breasts in half the thin way and pound them out very thin. season with salt and pepper. Add some cheese to the middle and roll them up so they are thin tubes. You will probably want to use toothpicks to hold them at this point. Saute with some oil on all sides to brown them up and cook them half way through. Remove the toothpicks. You should have your pretzel dough ready at this point. Roll out the dough and cut it into rectangles. Put your chicken on the dough, brush on some mustard, and roll it all up. Make a nice little knot on each end. Think of gift wrapping a t-shirt. Now take these pretzel-chicken packets and boil them for 1 minute in a pot of water and baking soda (amounts listed in the pretzel recipe). Brush with egg yolk wash and salt. Bake at 425 for 15 minutes until nicely browned.