This is recipe 1 of our 3 meal chicken feature (first, joint your chicken...) It's that 70s favourite, the chicken kiev, crisp coated and molten within it is well worth revisisting.
Ingredients - serves 4
2 organic chicken breasts
for the filling:
60g butter (room temperature)
2 cloves garlic
½ lemon – grated zest and juice
1 tbsp chopped parsley
¼ tsp Dijon mustard
sprinkling of chopped chives
for the coating:
plain flour
1 egg
100g breadcrumbs
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 Method
1 Peel off the skin and remove the loose piece of under fillet. Put the two breasts in the freezer for ten minutes to firm up whilst you make your herb butter. Combine the butter with all the other ingredients, season well and then roll up in cling film into a chipolata shaped sausage, freeze to firm up (this can be done well in advance).
2 Using a thin knife, make a hole at the thin end of the breast and push until you almost reach the other end to create a long pocket. Push in a slice of your hard butter. Repeat.
3 Crumb each breast by coating first in flour, dipping in egg and finally dipping in breadcrumbs. Repeat to ensure a good coating of breadcrumbs to keep your butter from oozing out when hot. Refrigerate crumbed breasts for an hour. Although normally cooking chicken straight from the fridge is frowned upon, in this case it stops your butter from running off.
4 Gently brush with sunflower oil and bake at 180°C for half an hour until golden brown. Allow to rest. Slice diagonally into 1-2cm slices. Serve with mashed potato to soak up the herb butter and punchy salad to counteract the richness of the sauce. |
