Chicken Breasts Stuffed with Spinach and Mozarella and Wrapped in Prosciuto

Ingredients (for 6 servings)

6 Chicken breasts
250ml white wine
1 tsp dried tarragon
1 pack Parma prosciuto ham (at least 6 good slices)
2 packs baby leaf spinach (about 250g)
2 Mozzarella cheese balls (in whey)

Method

1. Trim chicken breasts of fat, pointed ends and any loose bits. Sprinkle with tarragon and pour over the white wine. Marinate for about 3 hours.
2. Cook spinach lightly (I simply pierce the bags and microwave them for about 4 mins) chop and squeeze out as much moisture as you can. Divide into 6 equal portions and refrigerate.
3. Slice each ball of mozarella into approx. 5mm slices and refrigerate.
4. Drain chicken breasts and, with a filleting knife, cut a pocket in each along the sides.
5. Stuff the pockets with one portion of chopped spinach and about 3 slices of mozarella
6. Wrap each stuffed breast in a slice of prosciuto and place on an oiled baking sheet
7. Cook in a pre-heated oven at 200°C for 30 minutes.

I served these with 3 mini potato rosti (from Waitrose, frozen - 22 mins in a 200°C oven), a whole skinned fresh tomato injected with about 50ml white wine vinegar and seasoned with a little salt and pepper and a fig and balsamic vinegar compote piped into an attractive decoration on the plate.
 
  

Sparrow Grass -1

Asparagus is in season again – yay!

Spring is the proper time to enjoy this delicious and expensive member of the lily family. It makes your pee smell funny … but who is going to smell your pee except you? (I don’t need answers to that, thank you!)

The other day I was in Tesco and couldn’t resist buying two large bunches of fat asparagus for a fiver. Now I know that was expensive but they did weigh 2lbs.

Asparagus is one of those awkward vegetables which has tender tips and more substantial stems. As a result, the tips need very little (if any cooking) while the stems need about 5 minutes in boiling water. The absolute best way to cook them is standing up to their waists in water so that the stems are boiled and the tips just steamed.

I chose a reasonably deep pan such that there was room for the spears to stand upright in a bundle and used a couple of rings that are made for producing rosti and neat poached eggs (amongst other things). I trimmed the asparagus so that it would stand up in the pan with the lid on and pushed it into the rings, which served to hold it in bunches and stabilize them.

The bottom ends can sometimes be tough and stringy (though in this case they weren’t) but they still have a lot of flavour and certainly shouldn’t be consigned to the Green Bin – I will come to them later.

Once my spears were cooked and tender, I put 250ml of single cream (I could have used a Greek yoghourt) in a basin with four eggs, a little salt and a screw (or 12) of pepper. I added the asparagus (all but 18 spears which I reserved for garnish) and blended the lot to a delightful shade of green.

I had already prepared three 6 inch flan cases and baked them to a suitable crustiness (actually, my pastry was rather too short and had a tendency to break easily but, with care, I managed to crack only one and carefully put the pieces back together.

Once the cases were cool, I poured the creamy asparagus custard into them, garnished the tops with 6 spears each and gently returned them to the pre-heated oven at 180°C for 30 mins.

The result? Well, the custard was really a little too runny (I should have used double cream) and the garnishing spears tended to sink without trace in a couple of the flans. I should also have cooked them in a bain-marie with a covering of foil because a couple of them browned a little too much in my unequally heated fan oven.

My ideal was a firm flan with no browning or wrinkling of the top and six spears of asparagus garnishing each, so I didn't achieve that quite. Nevertheless, the result is delicious and would go well with a French or Italian salad (or any leafy salad, really), some baby potatoes and a glass of chilled Chardonnay.

Sweet Potato and Turnip Pie

This is a savory dish (unlike many which use sweet potato) which combines sweet potato, the bitter-sweetness of turnip, the sharpness of fromage frais and the aroma of herbs and spices.

I had the basics of this recipe from the American Institute of Cancer Research but I arrived there from a search, so I don't really know what it has to do with Cancer Research.

Never mind. Here is my version of it, which is somewhat richer and has more protein (from the fromage frais and the gram flour) than the original. I added gram flour (basically cooked and powdered chickpeas) because the sweet potato and the turnip seemed rather watery and I also wanted to avoid the heaviness of wheat flour. The mixture was still a little sweet and bland, even with the spices, and I felt it needed a slight cheesy/acidy bite to it, hence the fromage frais.

It derives crunch from the sauteed onion and pumpkin seeds.

Here is what I did.

INGREDIENTS
1lb sweet potato peeled and diced into 1" chunks
1lb turnip or swede/rutabaga peeled and diced into 1" chunks
1 medium onion, chopped finely
2 tbs pumpkin seeds, roughly chopped
1 tsp medium curry powder
1/2 tsp caraway seed
1/2 tsp ajwan seed (also called 'lovage'. It has a strong thyme flavour, so about 1 tsp of dried thyme or 2 tsp of chopped fresh thyme would do as well.)
1 tbs vegetable oil (canola/rapeseed)
100 g of gram flour
150 ml fromage frais, soured cream or yoghourt
200 g cheddar cheese, grated

METHOD
Steam the sweet potato and turnip chunks for 15 - 20 minutes. The turnip takes a little longer than the sweet potato to become soft.

Turn into a large bowl and mash well with a potato masher.

Place the seeds and curry powder in a pan and toast dry for a few seconds over a medium heat then add the oil and onions and saute until the onions are transparent and just beginning to colour.

Add the onion/spice mix to the mash and mix well. Add the gram flour little by little and mix. Add the fromage frais and mix till well blended. Taste and add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. I added about 1 tsp of salt (by the quarter tsp) and felt that it might have done with more but, since the dish is topped with cheese, I didn't want to overdo it.

Spoon the mix into a shallow dish - I found that a 9" round earthenware gratin dish was just right - and top generously with grated cheese.

Bake at 180°C for 30 mins or until the top is bubbling and golden.

Serve with peas or green beans as a main dish or as an accompaniment to roast pork or gammon.

I found that as a main supper dish the quantities given above were enough for 4 people. As a side dish, I guess it would serve 6 or 8.

Instead of sweet potatoes, one might use pumpkin but this is much more watery, so one would either sauté the mash a little to boil off the water or add some white potatoes to thicken it.

The pumpkin seeds I used were, of course, the green hulled ones that one can buy to add to mueseli or salads. I wouldn't for a moment consider using the seeds that one gets out of a Halloween pumpkin - far too much trouble to get the hard cases off! Use these, instead, for growing next year's pumpkins, sprouting as a salad, stringing together (suitably coloured) as bracelets and necklaces, feeding to birds and squirrels or making into collages ... there are an awful lot of seeds in a pumpkin and they seem to be covered in a substance that make Astroglide look like treacle!

Welcome to "The Owl Cooks"

Image by Getty Images via Daylife Let's just admire Pam Anderson for a moment! I guess she has little to do with this, but we shall see. She does have good looks and a nice smile (and an acronym for PEttable TAtas in a prominent and appropriate place!)

Owls cook? Well, of course they do! Especially the ones with glasses, chef's hats and frilly aprons. Actually, I abhor frilly aprons, myself ... I am a male owl and prefer practical things. An apron is practical because it protects your feathers from the usual and inevitable splashes and spurts and so on which are quite unavoidable if you are an Experimental Animal.

Anyway.

These pages are about occasional experiments with edible stuff.

It will be 'human edible', though if the occasional reference to small mammals and crunchy fish or insects creeps in, I hope that you will forgive me.

Owls, you know - this one, at any rate - can be almost vegetarian. It is really a matter of a balance of protein with all the other stuff - and it is so easy to overdo protein!

Well, enough of me ... on with the show!

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