Fortnum & Mason - Chicken with Squash

Last night's creation: Chicken with Squash

Recipe Book: Fortnum & Mason - The Cook Book

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Tasty. I really liked the look of this recipe so I thought I'd give it a bash for tea last night and I was pleasantly surprised. The squash relish was lovely, sweet, aniseedy and has a bit of a kick from the chillis and fennel and chicken cooked perfectly. It wasn't a quick recipe to make, but I suppose some of us have a bit more time on hands at the moment during this shite show of a pandemic.

If you're looking for something a bit different to do with a chicken breast, then certainly give this recipe a try. Please note, I had to ask my butcher for chicken breasts with skin on as Sainsbury's didn't stock them in the meat aisle.

Full Recipe Below

Serves 2

Ingredients:

4 fennel bulbs

4 chicken breasts, skin on

80ml rapeseed oil

salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the butternut squash relish

4 tablespoons olive oil

2 shallots, finely diced

1 red chilli, deseeded and finely diced

400g butternut squash, cut into lcm cubes

2 teaspoons fennel seeds, roughly crushed

4 tablespoons Chardonnay vinegar (if you cannot get Chardonnay vinegar; substitute good-quality white wine vinegar and 2 teaspoons sugar)

20g pumpkin seeds, lightly toasted in a dry frying pan

2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf Parsley

Method

1. First make the relish. 
2. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan, then the shallots and chill and for about 5 minutes, until softened but not coloured. 
3. Add the butternut squash cubes and fennel seeds and fry for a couple of minutes longer, then cover the pan and cook for 15 minutes or until the squash is just tender but still holding its shape. 
4. Add the vinegar, raise the heat a little and simmer until reduced by about two-thirds. 
5. Taste and adjust the seasoning, then leave to cool.
6. Stir in the pumpkin seeds and flat-leaf parsley, plus a drizzle of olive you like.
7. Trim the fennel bulbs and cut them into quarters if small, eighths if large, making sure the pieces stay
8. attached at the root end. Season the chicken breasts with salt and pepper. 
9. Heat the rapeseed oil in a heavy-based frying pan, add the chicken breasts, skin side down, and cook over a medium heat until golden brown underneath. 
10. Turn them over and transfer them to a small roasting tin. 
11. Place them in an oven heated to 180°C/Gas Marks and cook for about 15 minutes, until there is no pinkness inside when you insert a knife.
12. Meanwhile, the fennel pieces to the pan in which the chicken was browned and cook over a low to
13. medium heat, turning every 5 minutes, until they are golden and tender. 
14. Season to taste.
15. Serve the chicken accompanied by the fennel pieces and the butternut squash relish.

Aga conversion: OK, so looking back I might revise how I made this. 

• Chillis and shallots in my Aga saute pan on the simmering plate. when they started to cook a bit too quick I popped my Aga toaster underneath the pan to slow the heat.
• Added the squash and fennel, brought it back to a higher heat briefly on the boiling plate and then covered and stuck it on the floor of the simmering oven for 20 minutes.
• Added the vinegar with the pan back on the simmering plate.
• Emptied the completed relish into a dish and left it at the side of the Aga.
• Wiped out the saute pan to reuse - save on dishwasher space and all that!
• Fried the chicken on the boiling plate in the saute pan - this I would modify for next time and place the pan on the floor of the roasting oven instead.
• Transferred the breasts to small roasting tin on bottom set of runners in the Roasting oven for 20 minutes.
• Fennel into the chicken's saute pan and I toggled between between both hot plates to cook. This took slightly longer than expected. I might be tempted next time to use the floor of the Roasting Oven again.

Would I make this again? Yes we both enjoyed it.