I’m trying to take part in Jamie Oliver’s ‘Pass It On’ movement, as seen on his new TV series – the Ministry of Food. I’m hoping to pass on the recipes to people at work, so I thought I’d better check that I could cook them myself
So, first of all, I decided to try one of the main recipes that featured on the TV programme.
Pictures: show
Gather all the ingredients. Nothing massively exciting here, just some nice chicken, prosciutto and some good parmigiano.
The first, really exciting step, is to peel and chop the potatoes, then put them on to boil while the rest of the work goes on.
Then open up the chicken and lightly score it, to allow the flavours to penetrate the meat.
Sprinkle some thyme on the chicken. I actually think I used a little too much here.
Grate a bit of lemon zest on top
Grate a bit of the cheese and …
…sprinkle it over the chicken.
Cover the whole of the chicken with the ham, to protect it, and to give a good seal.
Put the chicken between two layers of clingfilm (I actually used two layers on top and two layers on the bottom)
Then, using the base of a pan, give the chicken a good bashing until it’s all evenly thin. This doesn’t take a great deal of time, although it is a bit of a faff, but it does make a difference. The whole point is to make the chicken the same thickness all the way over so it cooks at the same rate.
Heat a good non-stick pan with a bit of oil. (clearly it’s vital that I show a picture of this)
Slap the chicken in – ham side down.
Once the chicken is cooked about halfway through, and the ham is starting to go crisp…
…turn it over, nice and quick and smooth
At the end, once it was cooked right through, I turned it over again and just gave the ham a bit longer to make it really crispy.
Turn it out onto a board and slice across the middle.
Serve – in this case dressed with some lemon juice and with some mash and soya beans.
This was very nice. The thyme was a bit strong which makes me think I used a bit much. Lisa also did’t like the lemon juice squeezed on at the end, so I’ll skip that next time. This was very easy to make though, and I can see why Jamie used it as an example.
