Help my Chicken Cordon Bleu!

I'm not sure that this is the right place to begin a discussion about the proper way to cut the cheese and pound meat, but here goes:

First, I hope you're not such a foodie that you don't purchase boxed cereal or crackers. You need to start saving those industrial-strength-impervious-to-grain-moth-larva-impossible-to-open-I-swear-they're-made-out-of-Kevlar plastic bags that those foods are wrapped with. Those bags are the best ever for flattening chicken, beef or pork cutlets.

Second, use gruyere. Cut it into sticks about the size of your little finger. Wrap the sticks in a piece of deli Black Forest ham sliced as thinly as possible without it shredding or tearing. Place the ham and cheese sticks in the refrigerator.

Third, purchase bone-in, skin-on whole chicken breasts. When you get them home, pull off the skin and set it aside. Cut/pull the meat off of one side of the breast and pull/cut off the tenderloin portion; set the tenderloin aside next to the skin, and repeat with the other side of the breast. Use the skin and bones to make a light stock in which to poach the tenderloins for a nice chicken salad or soup.

Cut the breast halves in half horizontally so that you have two slices, each a little less than a half-inch thick, and put them in the freezer for 15-20 minutes. While they are icy but not frozen, remove them from the freezer one at a time and place them in one of your old cereal bags; pound the cutlet with the flat side of a meat mallet, pounder or small cast-iron skillet until it is the size of a dessert plate or your open hand with fingers splayed.

Place a ham-and-cheese stick slightly off-center of the cutlet and fold in the sides, then roll it up like an egg roll. Place it in the freezer until you've finished preparing the remainder of the cutlets; bread, then bake or fry as instructed by the recipe.

You could also cut a slit lengthwise though the side of a chicken breast half and insert one of those frozen prepared fried mozzarella sticks, then bread and deep fry it. (Look at me, I'm Sandra Lee!)

After you roll the chicken up around the filling, but before coating it in your breading, let it sit uncovered in the fridge for about an hour (or at least 30 min). The chicken will somewhat bind to itself. After the rest in the fridge, lightly coat with flour, dip in egg, then dredge in toasted bread crumbs and bake.

I've only made chicken Cordon Blue at one place that I worked and never at home. But after assembly we used to freeze the portions on sheet pans. But since the cheese is in the middle wouldn't that mean that it's done cooking by the time the cheese melts enough to ooze out? A quick read thermometer would help to determine this theory. I never had the cheese ooze out but I suspect because we deep fried ours rather than oven bake. In some way, I hope this helps. Good luck!

Try freezing the cheese portions before you assemble your Cordon Bleu. It will then cook inside the chicken breast, but won't ooze out. The same works with the butter for Chicken Kiev.