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Pollo Involtini al'la Nonna
Pollo Involtini al'la Nonna
EddyG


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Recipe (Food) (Classic Editing)
Camera: Canon EOS-10D
Lens: Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM
Location: My parent's kitchen
Date: Oct 15, 2003
Aperture: 5.6
ISO: 200
Shutter: 1/3 sec
Galleries: Still Life, Food and Drink
Date Uploaded: Oct 15, 2003

 The title translates from Italian to ''Grandma's recipe for stuffed chicken breast''.

Cooked and photographed in my parent's kitchen. I owe a big thank you to my mom for taking the time to help me with this challenge!

Taken with the Canon 24-70/2.8L at 32mmm, a 550EX flash held off-camera to left (via the off-camera shoe cord) and my dad's 420EX flash off to the right in ''slave'' mode, which was bounced off a piece of white foam core.

(Let me say that taking pictures of food is not as easy as it seems! Wow. I have a lot of respect for food photographers! And yes, I ate this plate of food after warming it up in the microwave after spending seemingly forever photographing it.)

Here is the recipe:

Prep time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Servings per recipe: 2

2 (6-ounce) chicken breasts, skinned and boned
2 oz prosciutto ham, thinly sliced
3 oz baby spinach, washed and stemmed
2 oz Fontina cheese, shredded
4 oz unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon fresh sage
1/4 cup white wine
1/4 cup chicken stock
Salt and pepper (to taste)
Fresh parsley, finely chopped (for garnish)
Carrot curls (for garnish)

1. Preheat over to 350F. Pound chicken breast thin. Place prosciutto on top, followed with spinach. Add Fontina cheese. Roll the chicken breast tightly. Place on a baking sheet. Bake for 30 minutes or until done.

2. Sauce: Melt butter over medium-high heat in saute pan. Add sage. Add wine and reduce by half. Add chicken stock and reduce again until
sauce coats the back of a spoon. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

3. Place prepared chicken on a cutting board. Slice into 5 pieces on an angle. Fan on plate. Drizzle sauce over. Garnish with fresh chopped parsley and carrot curls.

Goes well with asparagus.

Statistics
Place: 4 out of 58
Avg (all users): 7.0641
Avg (commenters): 8.3103
Avg (participants): 6.7872
Avg (non-participants): 7.1835
Views since voting: 3860
Votes: 156
Comments: 35
Favorites: 2 (view)

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AuthorThread
 10/23/2003 10:42:52 AM
Stunning photo! You made me want to go start cooking right away... While you have a lot of item in the photo, they all work exceptionally well together. The atmosphere looks lovely and festive -- and the dish divine! Thanks for sharing. I must try this...
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/23/2003 08:11:30 AM
Thanks to the folks that voted this shot a 7 or above! I appreciate that the 87 who did saw the time and effort that went into setting up this submission.

As for the "tilt", yes it is there, but that is something that is easily corrected. The preparation and shooting of this took a lot longer than I expected, which meant that by the time I got home from my parent's, I was very rushed to try and get the image submitted and didn't have enough time to do any post-processing. After I got up the next morning, I went through my shots again and I found one that wasn't cropped as tight (shot at 28mm instead of 32mm) which allowed me to rotate the canvas a tiny bit to compensate for the tilt. I used this as the source of my DPCPrints version (cropped to 1:1.25 aspect for 8x10 printing):

10/23/2003 07:48:05 AM
so close my friend. congrats on green
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/23/2003 12:35:06 AM
Nice work Eddy! Looks like another ribbon's coming your way soon!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 Comments Made During the Challenge
10/22/2003 12:48:07 PM
This has the classic look you'd expect to find in a cookery book or even on a menu of a fancy restaurant. The food also looks good (even though I think it's chicken). The lighting is good, has a slight warmth to it that's appealing. The fruit and flora adds a nice dimension too. About the only thing I'm not too keen on is the very tip of the fork on the right. I think it needed to be more in the shot or not there at all. It looks like you took a lot of time and effort to get both the food looking good and the presentation.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/22/2003 09:45:12 AM
Nicely presented! The extra care you took with garnishing pays off here. I'm sure Nona's recipe is yummy. Does that chicken have spinach in it? Overall vg job! 10!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/22/2003 12:29:28 AM
Beautiful warm color hues. Nice clarity to this photo.....wonderful composition...10
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/21/2003 07:22:10 PM
Lovely presentation and colors.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/21/2003 03:22:15 AM
Congrats!!! It´s a really good work. The composition is perfect, the light is brilliant too... So it´s a brilliant shot, one of my favourites of this challenge... 10
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/21/2003 12:36:10 AM
Looks great.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/20/2003 11:40:21 PM
This looks wonderful, where is the recipe? And it is a beautiful photo.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/19/2003 11:36:07 PM
Nice presentation. The background is a little distracting.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/19/2003 09:34:53 PM
Very nice composition. Well done.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/19/2003 07:59:59 PM
Has a nice autumn theme to it. Very nice color combinations. Great composition and DOF. 9.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/19/2003 04:15:27 PM
Nice composition here.. the food looks appealing :) I feel that the plate is a bit 'cramped' in the frame... maybe a little more breathing room on the left and right woudl be nice :)
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/19/2003 01:15:46 PM
Excellent!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/18/2003 09:01:15 PM
Wow, how pretty! You almost don't want to eat it and ruin the composition of the food! ;) This looks lovely, the food looks like it ready to jump out at you but the background is a bit distracting. Possibly if you had gone with a black or even brown one to match the table cover. An 8 from me.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/17/2003 08:07:58 PM
The bread, wine, fruit and flowers make this picture stand out from the many that show the main dish alone. Very nice.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/17/2003 03:30:03 PM
I really like the warm color palette used here
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/17/2003 08:40:49 AM
This was one of my favorites this time around. Nice arrangement, nice colors, nice all around!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/17/2003 01:36:18 AM
Wow! No, double wow! This composition is nearly perfect. Just the right amount of background ambience. The colors work wonderfully together and the lighting is great. The food looks excellent - even the set up on the plate is fabulous. Focus is very nice, though seems a bit soft on the.. carrot curls? that could just be a strange anomoly however. Maybe a teensy wider crop on the right side, just to get a bit more of the fork in. That's mostly being picky though. Fantastic. 10
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/17/2003 12:46:24 AM
It's a great shot I love it but one critical problem: It's titled to the right!! I can't believe that a photographer would make a good shot like this but not notice the extreme tilt. :(
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/16/2003 11:12:48 PM
Great shot but image should have been rotated a tad CCW.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/16/2003 09:38:51 PM
The repeated colors of green and orange really unify this photo. Beautiful photo. It deserves to be on a cookbook cover! 10
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/16/2003 07:15:47 PM
Looks delicious! You did an excellent job with the colors. The fruit, flowers, and placemap all tie in with the colors of the carrots and asparagus. I like the placemat on an angle, too.

Can't wait to see the recipe!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/16/2003 02:39:28 PM
A wonderful presentation! I was hoping to see a lot of shots in this challenge that look like they could appear in a cookbook, and this is one of the few that really does meet that expectation.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/16/2003 12:24:03 PM
Makes me hungry.... awesome...
Pollo Involtini al'la Nonna
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/16/2003 11:57:35 AM
great food 'styling' very nicely put together still life. Feels ever so slightly tilted though, but other than that excellent. Food looks very appealing too
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/16/2003 10:30:45 AM
nice thoughtful composition and this looks delicious!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/16/2003 10:21:21 AM
It's a 10.. I have no other comment to make other than- bon appetit
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/16/2003 10:17:19 AM
Bravo, looking forward to this recipe. The shot is a bit busy for my tastes. Having a plate with squares and a mat with plaid is too much. I might have left the fork and napkin out also. Manga! 7
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/16/2003 08:53:21 AM
This is beautiful. It looks like a picture straight from an elegant food magazine. Great lighting, wonderful placement of the items and it looks delicious. 10 from me!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/16/2003 08:52:48 AM
there's a lushness is the presentation that is very satis fying - now I am ravenous
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/16/2003 05:25:32 AM
The food looks good and I love the the muted tones of the background - the colours of the items on the plate are enhanced by its mainly white colour. Excellent control of exposure in difficult lighting conditions and the DoF is just right.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/16/2003 12:56:58 AM
plate too centered,light very good,looks very tasty,8 from me!
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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