PAN SEARED BUTTER CRUSTED STUFFED CHICKEN

Juicy tasty butter seared chicken stuffed with crispy bacon, butter wilted spinach and roasted cherry tomatoes, I was being slightly good (ignore the amount of butter 😆) otherwise I would have also stuffed a gooey melting cheese in there too!  Simple to make and a one pan cook this is a lovely dinner, serve with broccoli and butternut squash buttery (yes more butter!) mash.

Prep time 5 minutes / Cooking time 15 minutes

 
Ingredients 

(serves 2)

2 chicken breasts

2 x 2ft lengths of string 

Olive oil

6 cherry tomatoes

2 vines of cherry tomatoes approx 7 on each vine

200g spinach 

100g butter (I like salted) 

6 rashers of unsmoked streaky bacon

Himalayan sea salt 

Fresh ground black pepper

2 tbsp coriander chopped

To Serve

1/2 butternut squash peeled and diced

1 tsp apple cider vinegar 

1 head broccoli in florets

Pre heat your oven to 180 C / 356 F.  Place the two chicken breasts in a bag or cover with plastic wrap, using a rolling pin bash the chicken until to thicker part is the same thickness as the thinnest part.  

Heat a little olive oil and pan fry the bacon until crispy along with the loose cherry tomatoes, remove both and roughly chop the bacon.

Melt 25g of butter in a saucepan, add the spinach, season with salt and pepper and wilt for 1 minute, remove from the heat immediately.

Season the chicken breasts with salt and pepper and a good glug of olive oil, lay the string 3/4 to one side under the top of the widest part of the chicken, place some bacon, spinach and 3 tomatoes in the centre roll the top and bottom over the filling lightly encasing, tie your string up over the wrapped up chicken then repeat twice more in the middle of the chicken breast and the bottom of the chicken breast, don’t pull tight as this will squeeze the stuffing out.

Heat a skillet medium hot, add a good glug of olive oil and 50g of butter, place the chicken breasts in and sear a lovely golden brown crust on all sides, remove from the heat, add the 2 cherry tomato vines and pop in the oven for 12 minutes to finish cooking.  The centre of the chicken should be 75 C / 167 F.  Leave to rest in the hot skillet for five minutes and spoon over all the buttery resting juices several times.  Once served spoon over the chicken any left over pan juices.

At the same time as the chicken goes in to the oven place your butternut squash on to boil for 15 minutes, once fork tender drain and leave to steam for five minutes, season with salt and pepper, add back to the pan with the remaining 25g of butter, the apple cider vinegar then mash.

Steam or boil the broccoli for three to five minutes until fork tender, drain, season and serve.  Enjoy.