Chicken Breast Fillet and Bacon Parcels with Roast Potatoes, Tomato and Cucumber

These chicken and bacon parcels are a miniature variation of a dish I have prepared for many years. I have served them here with roasted potatoes and an idea that I came up with quite literally on the spur of the moment for an attractive way to present tomato and cucumber. The ingredients for this dish are quoted for two people.

Ingredients

1 chicken breast fillet
8 rashers of bacon
2 large potatoes
4 small tomatoes
8 slices of cucumber (1/4" thick)
1 tbsp freshly chopped coriander (cilantro in USA)
Generous pinch of dried sage
Sunflower oil
Salt and pepper for seasoning

Method

The first step is to put the oven on to preheat to 400F/200C/Gas mark 6. The potatoes should be peeled and chopped in to approximately 1" cubes. They should then be added to a pot of cold water and put on to come to a boil and then simmered for around fifteen minutes.

When the potatoes are on, the chicken breast fillet should be cut in to four strips, lengthwise. Four rashers of bacon should then be laid out flat as shown and a fillet placed on each of them, topped with some coriander. A second rasher of bacon should be added in each instance and the parcels carefully wrapped by tucking the bacon edges underneath. The parcels should then be placed in to a casserole dish - very lightly oiled with sunflower oil - the lid put on and the dish put in to the oven for twenty-five minutes. A further tablespoon of sunflower oil should be added to a baking tray and the tray also added to the oven to preheat.

When the potatoes have been simmering for around fifteen minutes, they should be removed from the heat, drained thoroughly and then returned to the empty pot. Carefully but moderately firmly, the pot should then be shaken to fluff up the edges of the potatoes before they are added to the hot baking tray, carefully swirled in the oil and added to the oven for around ten minutes.

While the chicken and bacon parcels and the potatoes complete their cooking, the core and seeds of the cucumber slices shoud be carefully removed with a sharp paring knife and four slices arranged as shown on each plate. The tomatoes should be halved by carefully cutting in as far as the centre of each tomato around the central circumference at alternate forty-five degree angles. This is surprisingly a lot easier than it may sound or look but great care must be taken to protect your hand holding the tomato in the event of the knife slipping for any untoward reason.

A tomato half should then be placed on top of each slice of cucumber. The casserole dish containing the chicken and bacon parcels may then be removed from the oven and the parcels added, two to each plate. While the potatoes are still on the baking tray, they should be scattered with the sage, seasoned with salt and pepper and given one final, gentle swirl, before being plated up and the meals served immediately.

Comfort Food and Calorie Counting

Are you a lover of traditional comfort foods but concerned by what is frequently their high calorific values? This book of recipes examines how you can still enjoy such foods but make them much healthier by simply substituting certain ingredients for others, without compromising on taste!