I feel this chicken tonight...like chicken tonight...

I thought I would share with you a couple of great meals for a weekend night. Nice and simple but quite impressive looking. The key of course is to use good ingredients. We try to regularly get our meat and veg from MacCullochs Food because he sources everything as locally as possible. Which means not only are you helping support local food producers but you get seasonal veg. I get quite excited when the box arrives and you see what you are getting this week. They also have an impressive range of box deals - meat & veg for £25 etc. This week I ordered a mixture of stuff but I always like to get some chicken so I can make meals like this:

Chicken stuffed with Boursin with cannellini bean stew
Ingredients for 2
150g Boursin
1 tablespoon of Crème fraiche
Grated zest of 1 lemon skin
2 chicken supremes, skin on
Splash of olive oil
For the bean stew
1 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, finely sliced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
200g pack smoked bacon lardons
400g cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
100ml white wine, martini or vermouth
100ml chicken stock, hot
2 tablespoons of Crème fraiche

Heat the oven to 200C/ fan180C/gas 6.
Mix together the Boursin with a table spoon of Crème fraiche, salt and pepper.
Lift the skin from the chicken breast and stuff the Boursin mixture in. Try not to over stuff it. Spread evenly and repeat with the remaining chicken.

Place the chicken in a non-stick roasting tray, drizzle with olive oil, season and roast for 25-30 minutes until cooked through.

Then heat the olive oil in a pan, add the onion and fry over a medium heat until softened. Add the garlic and fry for 1 minute, then add the bacon and fry until golden. Stir in the beans and white wine and bubble over a high heat for 3-4 minutes. Add the stock, simmer for 2-3 minutes, then stir the Crème fraiche.
When you are ready to serve, place a portion of the bean stew in the middle of the plate and pop the chicken on top. Yum

Chicken and Mushroom Pie
25g butter
1 red onion, diced or sliced into rings
1 chicken breast, diced
6 rashers of streaky bacon, diced
150g mushrooms, sliced
75g Broccoli, in small pieces
2 cloves of Garlic
1 teaspoon of nutmeg
1 teaspoon of Tarragon (or use fresh)
1 glass of white wine.
25g butter
75g flour
Milk as required
150g Boursin
1 bay leaf
Puff pastry
1 egg, beaten

This is a nice simple recipe. First cook the onion in butter until soft. Then add you chicken, diced and allow to cooked for 5 - 10 minutes. Then add your diced bacon. Allow the bacon to cook then add your mushrooms, broccoli and garlic. Cook for 5 mins, until the mushrooms are completely covers in the flavours then season to your liking with the nutmeg and tarragon. At this stage, add a small glass of white wine and leave on a low temperature for all the juices to evaporate. Mushrooms contain a lot of water so the mixture will be quite wet. You don't want this at the next stage so let it cook off.

While this is happening you can make your sauce for the pie. Start to make a bechamel sauce with the butter, flour and milk. When if gets to a nice thick sauce stage add your Boursin and allow it to melt into the sauce. Add a bay leave and season to taste. Add as much milk depending on the thickness you want for the sauce. I like it quite thick...

When your sauce is ready the chicken and mushroom mixture should be a nice sticky combination of ingredients (at this stage you could also use this mixture as a sauce for pasta!) Now, the easy part, mix the chicken and mushroom mixture in with the sauce and stir until nicely combined. Pour this into your pie dish. I use a Le Creuset pie dish (what else!). The mixture should just about come to the top of the dish but not quite. Then, roll out some puff pastry, big enough to cover the surface of your pie and a bit more. Pastry shrinks when cooking so you don't want to cut it neatly around the top of the pie dish. Then, if you have spare pastry you can decorate your pie lid! Always makes pies look more tasty. Then finish your pie by brushing some beaten egg over the pastry and pop it in the oven for about 30 mins or until your pastry has risen and is golden brown.

What I like about this recipe is the veg is in the pie too so you can just clear up and then serve your pie when ready. It's very tasty too!