Chicken Pea-evs

Ingredients

• 4 chicken breasts
• 120g frozen peas
• 2 large garlic cloves
• 2 slightly stale individual ciabatta loaves
• 2 eggs
• Plain flour
• Rapeseed oil
• 4 sage leaves
• 2 tablespoon butter
• Sea salt
• 4 cocktail sticks

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°c

Whizz the ciabatta loaves up in a food processor until they have become breadcrumbs.

Boil the peas for two minutes, drain and refresh in very cold water to keep them bright green. Drain again.

Finely chop the garlic cloves and sage leaves and fry for twenty seconds in two tablespoons of butter. When you can smell them, they are done. Add them to the peas with their butter and a pinch of sea salt, bash the mixture up a bit with a potato masher and put it to one side.

Coat the bottom of an oven dish with a tablespoon of rapeseed oil and put it in the oven to get hot.

Place a chicken breast on a board and put your weaker hand flat on the top of it. Carefully run a small sharp knife parallel to your hand, through the side of the breast to make a pocket and stuff it with two heaped teaspoons of the pea mixture. Close the pocket with a cocktail stick – like a sewing stitch – and then do the same with the other three breasts.

Now you’ll need three large bowls. Put a couple of handfuls of plain flour in one, crack the eggs into another and beat them and pour the breadcrumbs into the third. Make a line starting with chicken breasts, then the three bowls – flour, then eggs, then breadcrumbs. Holding just the tip of the smallest end of a chicken breast, dip it in first the flour, then then eggs, then the breadcrumbs and make sure it is well‐coated with each.

Take the oven dish out of the oven and carefully place the chicken pea‐evs onto the oiled base. Drizzle them with a little more rapeseed oil and roast them in the oven for about 40 minutes until they reach 75°c.

Serve with olive oil roasted potatoes, aioli and lots of veg.

Recipe by: Miles Gracie, Year 6, Chalkwell Junior School