Wednesday 21 November 2012

Festive Preparations

I've never made any pretenses about my organisational skills. In fact I quite regularly go on about my extreme lack of them. So, I had a little heart attack when my co-contributors to "At the Failsafe Table" decided to have a Christmas edition this week. It's a truly great idea and I'm sure you would all like to be a bit prepared and maybe even have a trial run of what you would like to make. For me this week is last minute birthday party preparation for my daughter's 4th birthday - Christmas is not even on my radar until next week.

I have managed to fit something in this week though, so this year you get a Christmas recipe from me before Christmas instead of in March.

While I was deciding what to make I was thinking about all the different yummy foods that are usually eaten over the holidays and one of the things that came into my mind was those rolled pieces of pork that are stuffed with fruit and nuts and are sweet and moist with that naughty bit of crackling on the top. I have done a failsafe version of that. "How is that even possible?" you say. "Massive substitutions" I say; that and a bit of imagination.




Christmas Chicken Roll
Ingredients
  • 2 large Chicken breast doubles
  • failsafe oil
Stuffing
  • 3 Tbsp ground raw cashews
  • 1 pear, peeled, cored and diced smallish
  • 2 shallots, finely sliced
  • 1 Tbsp maple syrup
  • 1/4 cup crumbs
  • 1 tsp salt
  • few sprigs parsley
Glaze
  • 1 Tbsp Maple syrup
  • 1 tsp whiskey (optional)
  • 1 tsp failsafe oil
  • 1/4 tsp salt
All tied up

Don't worry about being neat, just make sure it is tight.


Method
  1. Preheat oven to 180°C and lightly oil a roasting tray.
  2. Leave the cartilage that joins the breasts intact, but trim any other sinew or excess fat from the chicken.
  3. Mix all the stuffing ingredients together in a bowl.
  4. Lay out the breasts rough side up and spread one half of the first one with about a third of the stuffing. Lay the second piece so half of it covers the stuffing of the first. It's best if you do it with the thicker part covering the thinner of the first ("top and tailed") so it is not really thick at one end once it is rolled.
  5. Spread all of the second breast double with the remaining stuffing and then roll carefully so the cross section is like two interlocking "C's". 
  6. Tie it tightly with kitchen string and place into roasting dish.
  7. Push any bits of stuffing that have fallen out back into the end of it.
  8. Mix the glaze ingredients together and brush some over the chicken.
  9. Bake for one and a half hours (or until cooked through - depends on the chicken size). Take it out at intervals and brush with more glaze.
  10. When ready remove from oven and rest for 10 minutes, then remove string and slice.

Ready to be sliced




Variations
  • Nut free - No problem, just leave them out and add a little more crumbs or substitute for chicknuts as they could add another bit of flavour.
  • Salicylates - Apples would be nice instead of pears as would some herbs like sage or thyme.


Served with crispy herbed baked potatoes and steamed beans and cabbage  tossed with nuttelex, salt and sprinkled with crispy fried deli chicken.


We all enjoyed this, it really did remind me of the pork ones. Hubby said he would like to have more stuffing. It would be nice, but it would also make it trickier to roll.



1 comment:

  1. WOW! This looks awesome. I'm sure everybody enjoyed the wonderful food!

    ReplyDelete