Lemon chicken with a warm lentil salad and herb relish

First new actual dinner recipe for this year. I had been wanting to make this for a little while, so it finally happened, with good results. Recipe is to serve 4, I cut it in half as it was just for two.

I found while doing this what a benefit having your own herb garden would be, if only plants didn't die while I was in charge of them! I also found it was difficult to get the fresh herbs I was after.

Lemon Chicken

Ingredients

1 lemon, finely sliced
125ml extra virgin olive oil
4 chicken supreme (breast fillet with wing attached, with skin on)
sea salt
fresh ground black pepper
100g baby English spinach to serve

Mix the lemon and olive oil in a bowl , add the chiken and coat well, then cover and marinate i the fridge for at least 1 hour. Preheat the oven to 220°. Heat an ovenproof frying pan (large enough to hold all the chicken) over a high heat. Season the chicken with salt and pepper, place the chicken skin side down in the pan and sear until golden on one side. Turn the chicken over and cook for another minute to seal the chicken. (I don't have an oven proof frying pan, as far as I know, so I seared and sealed the chicken in the frying pan and then transferred it to the oven on an oven tray, it was in the oven for about 15 minutes)

Put the pan in the oven and cook the chicken for about 10 -12 minutes, until the chicken feels firm to touch. Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 5 minutes before slicing the chickenon the diagonal into three pieces. To serve, put a handful of spinach leave on each plate, spoon some lentil salad on top, then divide the sliced chicken among the plates. Serve with herb relish. Serves 4.

Warm Lentil Salad
1 teaspoon wholegrain mustard
60 ml extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
215g lentils de Puy, cooked to instructions on packet and drained
1/2 red onion, finely diced
1 teaspoon chopped fresh tarragon
1 teaspoon chopped fresh sage
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

Whisk the mustard, olice oil and vinegar together in a small bowl until combined. Combinethe vinaigrette in a bowl with the warm lentils, red onion, herbs and salt and pepper.

Herb Relish
1 tablespoon salted capers, rinsed, squeezed dry and chopped
1 anchovy fillet, chopped
3 spring onions, finely sliced
3 tablespoons finely chopped flat leaf parsley
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh chervil or tarragon (I used tarragon)
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
60ml extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
a few drops of red wine vinegar
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

Stir all the ingredients together in a bowl, then leave for 1 hour to allow all the flavours to develop

Philip and I shared a bottle of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc with this, it was very nice.

Unfortunately, by the time this was cooked, I had lost all natural light for my photos

This receipe come froom Bills Food by Bill Granger. You can see Bill's version here.

Chocolate Banana Muffins

It's been a while since I posted, mainly because I have mostly been having salad over the summer so haven't tried out much in the way of new recipes. Yesterday, we had too many bananas that just had to be used, so we did banana bread and the chocolate banana muffins, which Isobel described as delicious, so they must be good, given that she hates banana.

Ingredients

2 cups (300g) self raising flour
1/3 cup (65g) caster sugar
100g dark choc bits (I didn't have any choc bits in the house for a change, so used roughly chopped milk chocolate)
2 small (270g) ripe bananas
1 egg
60g butter, melted
1 cup (250ml) milk

Preheat oven to 210°. Grease a 12 hole muffin pan. Sift flour into a large bowl, stir in sugar and chocolate. In a separate bowl, mash the bananas, stir in egg, butter and milk. Add to the flour mixture, stir until just combined, spoon into muffin pan. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown, turn onto wire rack.


This recipe comes from Good Medicine magazine from April 1999. Being Good Medicine magazine, they recommend that the muffins be as healthy as possible so use skim milk, reduced fat margerine instead of butter and also suggest to use 1 cup of wholemeal SR flour. I'll leave that sort of decision up to you.