Feta-filled chicken breasts wrapped in bacon

After my Christmas cookie blast-from-the past post, I thought it fitting to do something a little more recent – my birthday lunch a couple of weeks ago at home! Yes, sadly the Cooksister is another year older, although I have decided to follow in the footsteps of Johanna‘s grandmother who reached her mid-sixties and then decided to start reversing her age with each birthday. So she had a sixtieth birthday, later a fiftieth, then a fortieth and so on. And clearly it must have had some health benefits because she got right back to her thirties again! You just have to time it a little bit carefully so that you don’t end up having to celebrate negative birthdays 😉

But I digress. So it came to pass that my birthday rolled around again, and on the Big Day I went to the Fat Duck for lunch with Johanna, and a week later I had a little birthday dinner at home. We were only seven, so I decided to do something a little special for dessert (individual chocolate fondant puddings), which led me to thinking about making something not tooooo rich for the main course (you can see the order in which my meals are constructed!). Now filled chicken breasts are one of my favourite quick dinners to make for friends. You can make them as elaborate or as simple as you like; bland or packed with flavour; rich and fatty or lean & mean. The choice is yours. And you can do endless variations on a particular recipe, depending on the end result you are aiming for. There is one particular recipe that I made regularly when I was living in South Africa that involved stuffing a chicken breast and oven-baking it topped with breadcrumbs and Parmesan – always a hit at dinner parties! In fact, the recipe that I chose for my birthday was similar to this in terms of stuffing, if not topping. (Judging by the lettering and the paper of the clipping pasted into my recipe book I suspect it may originally have come from the South African Sunday Times magazine – source of many of my early favourite recipes!!)

So, on to the evening in question. Johanna had kindly agreed to bring canapes – and believe me, if anybody knows about canapes, it’s Johanna!! I helped her to cater for a drinks party back in November and she was just sooooo good. She brought puff-pastry mini galettes topped with cherry tomatoes and pesto; baby potatoes topped with wasabi creme fraiche and caviar; Thai chicken balls with a dipping sauce and my perennial favourite smoked salmon roly polies. What a wonderful array of canapes to accompany my opening of my presents! And all washed down with cava in copious amounts!! (see picture below…)

And then we headed for the table, ready to tuck into the main course of chicken breasts wrapped with bacon and stuffed with feta cheese, tomato paste and spring onions, oven-baked on a bed of thinly sliced potatoes and onions (recipe below). This truly is one of my go-to recipes when I want maximum impact for minimal effort. The dish does not take long to prepare; it is fairly easy to double the quantity without doubling the fuss; it looks suitably cheffy when you bring it to the table – and above all it is delicious! The bed of thinly sliced potatoes ensures that all the juices from the bacon and any from the filling are soaked up and my top tip is to let the potatoes

FETA-FILLED CHICKEN BREASTS IN BACON (serves 6)

Ingredients:

6 boneless, skinless free range chicken breasts

6 spring onions, finely chopped

About 120g feta cheese, crumbled

3 Tbsp concentrated tomato puree

6 slices of bacon

Method:

Butterfly and flatten each breast (cover them with clingfilm before you flatten them – less messy!).

Place the feta, spring onions and tomato paste in a bowl and mix well. If you want a smoother texture to the filling, you can put them in a food processor, but I like a filling with some texture.

Spread equal amounts of the filling on each breast and then roll op each breast. Wrap a rasher of bacon around each one to secure – use 2 rashers if the breasts are large.

In a large, shallow oven-proof dish, layer very thinly sliced potatoes and onions (you can add a splash of cream, but it’s not essential) and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Place the wrapped chicken breasts on the potatoes, cover the dish and bake at 180C for about 50 minutes, or until the chicken is done. I like to turn on the grill for the last 5-10 mins to crisp up the bacon ever so slightly. Serve on a spoonful of the potato onion mix with greens on the side.

Other optional variations include:

make a healthier version without bacon and just secure each rolled up breast with a toothpick
sprinkle the stuffed chicken with a mix of grated Parmesan and breadcrumbs to give a crispy topping
try an alternative filling of lightly fried onion and garlic, copious amounts of Boursin cheese, chopped sun-dried tomatoes and fresh basil leaves

If you enjoyed this recipe why not try my: