I don’t know about you but I’ve noticed the mornings are definitely becoming darker later. A sure sign autumn isn’t too far away. Two weeks ago at 05:00 it was light but the past week it’s still dark at the same time.
While we can still enjoy warm (even hot) sunny days we should take advantage of eating outdoors. While I was glancing through my cookery books I came upon this recipe for Lemon Chicken Plait in Woman’s World Cookbook, South African Favourite Recipes. Perfect for an outdoor lunch or picnic.
Ingredients
Four chicken breast fillets, skinned
50g butter
50g button mushrooms, quartered
50g flour
250ml milk
1 chicken stock cube
Rind and juice of half a lemon
15ml fresh parsley, chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Pastry
250g flour
2ml salt
60g butter, diced
100 ml cold water to mix
Beaten egg to brush over
Garnish of lemon slices and fresh parsley
Method
Dice the chicken breasts and heat the butter in a saucepan, Fry the chicken and mushrooms until browned. Stir in the flour, cook a minute longer, remove from the heat, add milk and crumble in the stock cube. Return to the heat, bring to the boil stirring continuously, and cook until the sauce thickens. Add lemon rind, juice and parsley, cooking for one or two minutes. Test for seasoning. Leave to cool.
To make the pastry
Preheat oven to 200c. Sift flour and salt into a bowl and rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add cold water and mix to form a firm dough. Turn out onto floured board and knead lightly; leave to rest for 30 minutes. Roll out pastry and trim to a 30cm square. Place on greased baking tray. Spread chicken filling in 10cm panel down the middle of the pastry. On either side of the filling, cut pastry into 15cm strips. Brush the edges of these with beaten egg and fold across the filling, working alternately from either side to create a plaited effect. Brush with beaten egg and bake for 30 minutes or until golden. Cool on a wire rack. Place chicken plait on a serving platter and garnish with lemon slices and parsley. Serves 4 to 6. Serve with a tossed green salad.
That’s it for this week. Next week I hope I’ll have time to – Shop till I drop!
Julie
