Try this The Chef and I recipe and others similar.
- olive oil
- 1 onion
- 1 carrot
- 2 sprigs rosemary
- 2 x 400g tins of lentils
- 2 tomatoes
- 200 g baby spinach
- 1 tsp red wine vinegar
- 4 heaped tbsp natural yoghurt
- 4 x skinless chicken breasts
- 2 tsp smoked paprika
- 4 cloves garlic unpeeled
- 1 handful fresh thyme (or other fresh herb of your c tarragon would work nicely)
- 6 rashes streaky bacon
- crusty bread
- Carbohydrate 52.7394763044616 g
- Cholesterol 0 mg
- Fat 3.23122999955 g
- Fiber 14.1952002902031 g
- Protein 13.68914 g
- Saturated Fat 0.706748999937864 g
- Serving Size 1 1 recipe (656g)
- Sodium 401.621239540107 mg
- Sugar 38.5442760142585 g
- Trans Fat 0.699240249987814 g
- Calories 264 calories
Step-by-step
- Peel your onion and carrot and blitz in a food processor with the rosemary
- Put a glug or two of oil in a fry pan with high sides and start sauteing
- Get a really large sheet of baking paper out on your bench. Scatter over a generous amount of salt, pepper and the paprika. Rub into the chicken all over (if you've been generous there's enough for both sides and a good rub into the chicken).
- Fold the baking paper over the top of the chicken (I told you it needed to be a big sheet) then get a rolling pin and bash it to about 1.5 cm thick. (I didn't do it thin enough so it took longer to cook for me)
- Get another fry pan on with a glug of oil then add the garlic cloves, the herbs and the chicken. Fry for about 4 minutes on each side until nicely golden and cooked through.
- Back to the veg in the other pan, add the two tins of lentils with the water they're in (ie don't drain them) and the tomatoes which you've chopped up roughly (I just blitzed them to chunky in my little mini blender as I'd already using it for the onion and carrot. Put the lid on and leave to simmer
- Roughly chop the spinach in the food processor - you don't want it pulverised so just pulse it until it's shredded but not moosh. Add to the lentils with the red wine vinegar.
- Lift the chicken out of the pan, you might need to give it a wipe down before cooking the bacon and then fry off the bacon.
- Put the lentils into a wide lipped platter (it's runny so don't go and use some flat platter contraption) and dollop over the yoghurt, give it a little swirl through.
- Cut the chicken up on an angle and place over the top then put the bacon on top of that.
- Serve with crusty bread or pitas.
When kitchen equipment is limited to a single food processor, processing ingredients in a strict sequence prevents cross-contamination. Start by blitzing the raw aromatics like onions, carrots, and rosemary before moving on to pulse the fresh spinach into a coarse shred rather than a puree. Flattening skinless chicken breasts between parchment paper using a rolling pin forces them to an even 1.5 cm thickness, which ensures the meat cooks through uniformly in four minutes per side without drying out the exterior. Unpeeled garlic cloves dropped directly into the hot frying pan infuse the cooking oil gently without burning the papery skins.
Canned lentils retain their starch when added directly to the pan with their canning liquid rather than drained, creating a naturally glossy braising base that requires no added starch. Simmering the chopped tomatoes alongside these legumes breaks down the cellular walls into a cohesive sauce within fifteen minutes. Stirring red wine vinegar into the hot greens at the final stage sharpens the earthy profile.
Leftover lentil and chicken portions store safely in airtight glass containers for up to three days in the refrigerator. Reheating should occur gently over medium-low heat on the stovetop with a tablespoon of water added to loosen the starches, as microwave heating tends to toughen lean poultry breasts.
