Making weird stuff: How to make chicken en croute

Nom nom nom...

Chicken en croute (chicken in pastry) is one of my favourite things to eat.
This dish is delish and a piece of piss to make. Having made it for someone who asked for the recipe, this post shows how...

In the tradition of dodgy 1970s cookbooks, here's a "serving suggestion" - broccoli with butter on it.

Dedication

This post is for Garance, to whom I promised I'd write up how to do this...
Yo Garance!

Preparation

Get an apron on if you have one. This gets messy...
Comedy aprons are adequate.

Ingredients

This recipe uses chicken breast fillets. The cheapest way to get these by far, is frozen ones. I use Asda "Smart Price", £3.99 a kilo is pretty cheap...

Health and safety

DEFROST THE CHICKEN!

For this recipe don't use chicken breast fillets from frozen or they will not be cooked. You have to defrost them first.

Well, you don't have to, but if you eat raw chicken, you risk some level of food poisoning. This can vary from getting the shits, to more unhelpful extremes (like death).

Defrosting is easy with a microwave and means you can make this whenever you feel like.

To microwave defrost, put the fillets on kitchen paper on a plate...
(If you don't have a microwave, leave out overnight, covered to stop flies getting on them.)

And pop in the microwave...

They start like this, all white and frosty looking...

Set the microwave for defrost...

The time varies, but something like 8 minutes for 2 pieces is a good start...

Meanwhile - roll out your pastry

While the chicken is defrosting, get your pastry rolled out.

Unless you are really keen, don't try to make puff pastry. Just buy it. It is cheapest to buy a block.
You can buy it ready rolled, but don't be so lazy - roll it yourself...

Roll it out...

...until it is about 4mm thick...

Meanwhile, back at the microwave...

By now, the microwave will have pinged and the chicken will be semi-defrosted...
You can see the chicken is getting there, but is NOT fully defrosted.

Turn the chicken over...

This helps the microwaves get at it evenly...

Then, defrost some more in the microwave.
The time you need depends on how many pieces you have and the power of the microwave...
To check the chicken is defrosted, squeeze it or bend it. If it is stiff, it's still partially frozen.

The chicken should be pink and floppy when defrosted.
Here are some that are done...

Meanwhile (again)...

Turn the oven on. The starting temperature is gas mark 6 or 200C

Putting it together

While the oven is heating up, it's time to put it all together.

Place the raw chicken on the rolled out pastry.

Allow enough pastry to be able to fold over and encase each fillet...

Filling

Chicken alone will be too dry. Before making the pastry parcels, some extra stuff is needed.

It doesn't really matter what this is. In fact it is good to try out different flavours you like.
Whatever you use, the filling needs to add two things:

flavour
moistness

Cream cheese is an excellent filler. It tastes good and melts into a thick "sauce" inside the pastry. It is also very cheap. This is usually what I use a base, then add extra flavourings...

Dollop onto the fillets.

Health and safety

DON'T DOUBLE DIP!

Be careful not to touch the raw chicken fillet with the knife after applying the cream cheese.

If you do touch raw chicken and then put the knife back into the cheese after touching it, you can contaminate the rest of the cheese with bacteria!

For flavour get some garlic...

And chop/beat/crush to a near-pulp. A cleaver is my preferred implement but you can use a crusher...

Put that onto the cream cheese, and season with salt, pepper...
And then expand the flavour with anything else you fancy like chilli flakes, herbs, whatever...

Here, you can see salt and pepper and garlic (top) and salt, pepper, garlic and chilli (bottom)
The cream cheese has been spread out to make it even.

Sealing the pastry parcels

Once the filling is applied, then fold over and pinch the pastry to seal it...

You can use flour/water paste to help this, but you usually don't need to.
It is usually only if the chicken protein-y juice has made the pastry not stick.

The fold over technique (like a pasty) is the simplest, but can leave you with big pastry flaps round the edges...

Another way to fold and seal is to fold more like an envelope and pinch like this...

Here are these two methods for comparison...

Variations

It's not just chicken that this works with. Beef en croute also works. Just don't use a chewy meat. The best is rib-eye steak, but it is nowhere near as cheap as chicken (like £15-£20 per kilo compared to £4 for chicken)

For beef, a good filling is pate. It has a strong flavour and is nice and fatty so adds moistness.

Slap it on in the same way as the cream cheese above...

And add flavours too in the same way. These are Italian piemento chillis (cherry peppers), very sweet and delicious, with extra dried chilli flakes for some oomph...

If you are in a rush or don't have any pate, olive oil, garlic and pepper works...

Here are two beef (left) and two chicken parcels ready to cook. Note the flappy pastry has been pinch-rolled to help it cook evenly and look better...

Before cooking, you should apply a glaze.

This will add colour and allow you to more evenly add flavour to the outside of the pastry.

You can use beaten egg. I quite often use flour and milk if in a hurry. It is good for holding on things like seeds and herbs. (You can just use milk if you are only adding light things like salt or herbs, but seeds need a thicker glaze to hold them on.)

Just pour flour into a glass...

And stir in milk.
Milk has lactose sugars in it which caramelise and help the pastry go nice and brown.

Paint it on it on with a pastry brush...

Then add the flavour. Pumpkin seeds are excellent for this. They roast well for a great flavour, but don't burn easily. Sesame seeds are good too...

The milk/flour glaze stops them all falling off...

Don't worry about evenness...

Other good things to add are salt...

Even better, celery salt...

And of course, freshly ground black pepper...

And grated mature cheddar doesn't hurt either...

Ready to bake...

Here they are all prepped...

Pop in the oven, that by now is at full temperature...

And get the timer on for 25 minutes. You may need to check them before 25 minutes, but you should never leave them longer than this for the first part of the bake or they can be burnt on one side before you know it...