April 2, 2014

Pastry with chicken + bacon

I don't think I've ever mentioned this, or maybe I have, I don't know, but my all time favorite chef is Nigella Lawson. The reason is pretty simple: she doesn't look at how much calories there are in a dish. So yes, you might get quite fat making all her recipes, but oh my... They are SO SO SO good! I'm not sure if this one in particular is very fatty, but it's really good and it looks so fun to make. This recipe is inspired by this dish of Nigella, but I adjusted it a little bit and changed a few things to my own taste. How I did that, you can find out below. The most fun about this dish is cracking the top open when the pastry is baked. Such fun, such fun!

Ingredients (4 persons)

  • 2 chicken filets (or 1 double), cut into small pieces
  • 200 g bacon lardons
  • 250 g mushrooms
  • 300 ml chicken stock
  • 3 tbs flour
  • 1 tbs provençal herbs
  • garlic oil
  • a bit of butter
  • puff pastry

Preparation

  1. Preheat the oven to 220° C.
  2. Bake the lardons in garlic oil until they're crispy. Add the mushrooms too.
  3. In the meantime,  put the chicken pieces in a bag or bowl, add the flour and provençal herbs and toss around. Make sure all of the chicken pieces are covered in a layer of flour.
  4. Toss in the chicken with the bacon and mushrooms and let it bake for a while.
  5. Because of the flour, the chicken will probably stick to your pan, so add a little bit of butter to help it bake better.
  6. When the chicken is more or less cooked, add the chicken stock to the dish. Let it simmer for a while. The flour will thicken the sauce, but if you're not happy with the thickness, you can always add a little bit of cornstarch.
  7. Cut out circles, a bit bigger than the size of your bowl, out of the puff pastry.
  8. Divide the mixture over 4 bowls. Now comes the tricky part (or at least it is to me). With what's left of the puff pastry, cut out strips and place them around the rim of the bowl. Place the larger circle on top of the bowl, and press them together at the edge. You can probably do this best with a fork, that way the pastry really stick together.
    If this doesn't make any sense, maybe you can check Nigella's recipe. After all, she's the cooking queen.
  9. Put the bowls in the oven for about 20-25 minutes.

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