Attempting Chicken and Mushroom Parcels

I've been sitting here since the last post went up over an hour ago with no idea how to start this post. So I'm just going to give you the recipe and some pretty pictures and be done with it!

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter

2 bacon strips, chopped

150g white button mushrooms, chopped

150g field mushrooms, chopped

6 green spring onions, chopped

1 tablespoon grain mustard

110g cream cheese

1/3 cup heavy whipping cream

450g cooked chicken, chopped

10 sheets pastry, filo or puff

To cook the chicken I decided to poach my chicken breasts. Poaching is basically a nicer way of saying boiling. So simple to do, just cover the chicken with water, bring to the boil, when the chicken rises to the surface weigh down with a small plate or something similar to keep the chicken under the water. Should take about 15-20 minutes for this amount of chicken. It makes it really succulent and if you season the water it should taste pretty good too!

Heat the butter in a frying pan, add the bacon and mushrooms and cook, stirring, until the liquid has evaporated. Add the green (spring) onions and cook, stirring, until soft. Stir in the mustard, cream cheese, cream and chicken and mix well.

God this mixture was SO yummy, I could have eaten it just like this (shhh don't tell anyone but.. I did!)

Cut sheets of pastry in to rectangles, you need two rectangles for every person eating, spoon a bit of the filling in to the middle of the pastry rectangles and squish the edges together, make sure you do this TIGHTLY or you'll get leakage!

Brush with a little melted butter and sprinkle poppy seeds on top (or in my case dried thyme). Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius and bake for approx 20 minutes or until golden.

 

Definitely something I'll be making again!

Attempting Potato and Pea Curry (Aloo Mattar)

I've been wanting to try making this curry for months now, it's my absolute favourite curry and it's pretty simple to make! It's vegetarian and basically consists of potato and peas!
The ingredients are:

3 onions
3 cloves of garlic
1.5 inches of ginger
1/2 c butter
1.5kg potatoes diced
1 1/2 tablespoons curry powder
1 1/2 c chicken stock
350g frozen peas
1 bunch coriander
1 1/2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice

Finely dice the onion, mince the garlic and grate the ginger. Sauté onion, garlic and ginger in the butter in a large saucepan (trust me, the bigger the better, I ended up using our large catering pot to fit everything in.)

Add in the diced potato and curry powder, mix all together. Stir in chicken stock and bring to the boil. Allow to simmer for 15-20 minutes or until potato is cooked through. Add peas and simmer for 5 minutes. Add finely chopped coriander, white wine vinegar and lemon juice. Season with salt.

I paired my Aloo Mattar with chapatis and rice. I bought pre-made chapatis from the Indian supermarket and heated them up in a HOT frying pan with a dash of oil, let them puff up then pat down with a tea-towel and flip over, best to use tongs to do this (I learnt the hard way, my poor fingertips!) These only take about 30 seconds each side to cook.

This was a HUGE hit with the family, the flavours go together soooo well. The lemon juice just really freshens up the whole dish and counteracts the heaviness of the carbs. Definitely something we will be eating again!