I regularly watch Jamie on TV, making some fabulous recipes for friends and family, and one of his inspirational Chicken recipes is the chicken Kiev recipe for a quick, simple supper.
Homemade chicken Kiev is a simple, easy meal to make. Plus often, most of the ingredients required are in the store cupboard.
Rather than getting the chicken from the supermarket, Jamie's advises popping along to your farm shop for the chicken breasts. I make my garlic butter using double cream, but regular unsalted butter is just as good. If you are no good at chopping herbs, use dried parsley for the garlic butter. Plus, the freeze-dried herbs are quite a good substitute for fresh ones.
Here is my take on Jamie's recipe to suit my family’s tastes. There is a lot of hand washing when handling chicken, so do have the hand wash and a towel handy.
Serves four people
Ingredients
- 4 skinless chicken breasts
- 3 tablespoons plain flour
- 2 large free-range eggs
- 150 g fresh white breadcrumbs
- sunflower oil
- 2 lemons optional for serving
For the garlic butter:
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 15g fresh flat-leaf parsley (a small bunch) keep a few sprigs for garnish
- 100g unsalted butter (at room temperature)
- 1 pinch of cayenne pepper
Serve with baby new potatoes and broccoli.
Method
- Start by making the garlic butter. Peel the garlic and put it through a garlic press, mix in with the finely chopped parsley leaves (or dried parsley) and add to the softened butter, add a pinch of cayenne. Make the butter into a sausage shape, wrap in Clingfilm and pop in the fridge to firm up.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C, 350°F, and gas 4. When ready to start supper take the chicken breasts out of the fridge with the garlic butter, place the chicken breasts on your raw meat board (A large dinner plate will do), and make a pocket in each breast with your knife. Use your fingers to open the pockets up slightly, cut the chilled garlic butter into four and pop one piece into each pocket. Simply fold and seal, completely covering the butter inside the pocket.
- Take three shallow bowls or large dinner plates, one for the flour, one for the whisked eggs, and the other for the breadcrumbs mixed with a pinch of salt and pepper, for a bit more spice use cayenne pepper. Taking one chicken breast at a time, evenly coat in flour, then beaten egg, letting any excess drip off, and finally, toss in the breadcrumbs. To stop both hands getting sticky just use one, keeping the other hand clean. Any bare patches pat a few extra on so they are evenly coated all over.
- In a large frying pan shallow-fry the chicken breasts in sunflower oil on both sides on a medium to high heat. You are looking for a light golden colour, so a couple of minutes on each side should be sufficient. When ready immediately transfer them to a lined baking tray (saves on washing up) and pop in the oven to bake. Have a look after 10 minutes, they should be golden brown and fully cooked through. If not quite ready leave for a few more minutes and keep checking.
- Warm your plates, one way to do this is can pop them in hot water in the sink.
- While the chicken is baking pop your new potatoes on to cook, and when they are boiling put you broccoli on to cook.
- When ready plate your Kiev's on to warm plates and serve your new potatoes and broccoli in warm dishes, add a knob of butter to the potatoes. If you are having guests garnish with a sprig of parsley and a wedge of lemon.
Enjoy! Norah X