This is one of my favourite meals I used to eat when working at the Imperial Hotel on Bourke St in Melbourne, so I wanted to share it with you because it’s quite simple to make, and I know how much people love bacon!
Basically, you take a breast of chicken, and wrap a nice big rasher of bacon around it, seal it in a frying pan and finish it off in a hot oven.
How To Cook Your Bacon-Wrapped Breast
The best way to cook your chicken is to pan-fry it, sealing both sides, and then finishing it off in the oven. This will help cook it quickly, plus by pan-frying it first the flavours of the bacon will begin to absorb into the chicken breast, adding that delicious smoky flavour.
Now, I use a frypan with a metal handle so it can be put straight into the oven. If you don’t have a frypan that can cope with the heat of the oven, then transfer your chicken breast to a tray (preferably one that has at least a couple of centimetres of depth).
Finishing Your Bacon-Wrapped Chicken Breast In The Oven
Make sure you’ve got the oven pre-heated to about 180C (375F). Once you’ve sealed both sides (about 2-3 minutes each side should do it), transfer your chicken breast to the oven for about 6-8 minutes to finish it off.
SUGGESTION: Before oven-roasting the chicken, I add a touch of white wine, it adds a bit of flavour to the chicken plus keeps it juicy and tender. If you don’t want to use white wine, a little bit of chicken stock, or even water, will also do the trick!
To make it a complete meal, I like to combine it with some mashed potato and fresh veggies, plus my favourite part of the meal, sun-dried tomato mayo.
How To Make Sun-Dried Tomato Mayo
This can be quite simple, if you’re pressed for time and happy to use store-bought mayonnaise, then in a food processor add your sun-dried tomatoes (depending on how much you want to make, you might only need to add a few).
Blend to a pulp, then add some mayo to mix it all together nicely. If you’re like me and you prefer to make your own mayo, in your food processor you’ll need to begin with about 6 egg yolks, white vinegar (enough to make up for the missing egg white), a table spoon of Dijon (French) Mustard, 1/3 table spoon of Hot English Mustard, and a pinch of salt and pepper.
Blitz it all together, then slowly add 1L of good vegetable oil. Just start with a very slow drizzle to begin with, and once it begins to emulsify (stick together), you can start to add the oil a little more quickly. If the mayo looks like it’s beginning to split, add a touch of warm water and slow right down when you begin to add oil again.
Mick Reade has been working as a chef in Australia for over 10 years, in a variety of different types of kitchens all across the country, and now helps teach others how easy it can be to cook healthy delicious food. For a free cookbook, check out http://www.alleasyfoodrecipes.com