365DOP: Chicken Breasts with Lentils and Mashed Potatoes

Cross-posted from 365 Days of Peta.

This Insatiable dish is basically what it says on the packet, but with all the French-ified accoutrements that we've learnt to love from our Peta. As I'm writing this up, I'm looking over the recipe again and realise that the recipe also owes a lot to fusion cuisine, the dark time to which I've referred earlier. However, this is defo on the lighter end - essentially it is a French-style dish with a couple of Asian herbs thrown in for good measure.

How is it done?

The chicken: bresticles marinated in lots of Dijon mustard, lots of white wine, cumin and Vietnamese mint (in my case: regular mint because of the enormous mint tree at the back of the flat). Peta recommends at least two hours.

The marinade is reduced to make a sauce and the chicken is cooked in a fry pan, just a few minutes on each side. I seem to recall reading that, in terms of food poisoning, using the chicken marinade as a sauce is a terrible idea, so I was a bit hesitant to do this (as  in, didn't want to give my family salmonella).

Suffice to say, my trust in Peta was well rewarded. Not only did we all escape with our bottoms unscathed, but also OMG THE MOST DELICIOUS SAUCE EVER. The sauce was the highlight of the whole thing, as was agreed by Dad and Tom.

The lentils are cooked in a stock similar to the Smoked Fish and Puy Lentils dish that I made earlier: however, you can see that Peta has chilled out a bit with the ingredients, because the stock for these lentils is Kaffir lime leaves and spices (as oppose to umpteen vegetables that are later given the biff). I love lentils so hard, and I love that there are so many recipes of Peta's where she makes ample use of lentils.

Peta also notes that the French eat a lot of grains and pulses, and that Puy lentils are the créme de la créme. Shannon would agree.

In a fit of enthusiasm I also decided that there was nothing to be done but to follow Peta's mashed potato recipe. This is very different to how I would make mashed potatoes. Essentially, it's backwards - the potato is mashed and beaten into a pan of warm milk and olive oil.  This makes a fairly liquid mashed potatoes which I wasn't that impressed by, although my lack of a ricer or a mouli meant that it was a bit more lumpy than was ideal.

Conclusion:

I made this for my menfolk, and both Dad and Tom commented on how delicious it was - they don't usually gush but they definitely made a point of commenting on how good it was. I ate spoonfuls of the sauce while I was cooking and keep thinking about making it again. Maybe this weekend?

A++ for this one Peta!

(No pass mark for my food photography though. Does not do it justice.)