TRAY BAKED CHICKEN WITH SWEETCORN & BACON

It was Pascal's birthday on Thursday and so we went for an incredible meal at our favourite restaurant Gola, of course. We then celebrated again last night with friends and I cooked this tray baked chicken recipe which I adapted from one of Jamie Oliver's cook books. In his recipe, he adds banana to the chicken but to me that sounds utterly gross so I left it out but each to their own! This was a great dinner party dish as it was quick and easy to make and you can prepare it all beforehand. Although presentation wasn't the best….something I definitely need to work on!

We made this dish for 6 however here is the recipe for 4.

Ingredients for 4 people:

4 chicken breasts, no skin
4 fresh corn on the cob
1 x 410g tin of cannelloni or butter beans, drained
1 large wine glass of white wine (250ml)
300ml double cream
55g butter
12 rashers of smoked streaky bacon or pancetta
a handful of fresh mint, leaves picked

Preheat your oven to 220 C / gas mark 7.

Run a knife down the length of the corn of the cob to remove the corn. Once done, add the corn to the tray and discard the cobs. The corn is much more flavoursome than buying it in a tin and this is super easy to do.

Using a fork or your fingers (messy but best I reckon), squash up half of your beans until you have pulp and then add these to the sweetcorn along with the unsquashed beans.

Add the chicken breasts side by side and season well.

Next add the 300ml of double cream and the 250ml of white wine.

Divide the butter into little knobs and scatter around the tray.

Then drape the bacon or pancetta over the chicken breasts and bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes (I did 40).

Then serve with some scattered mint leaves.

This was really good - I love all the different flavours together. Definitely both kid and adult friendly. It did need further seasoning though. My plate didn't look as good as Jamie's in his cook book and Pascal reckoned there was too much sauce - next time we will serve this with some mash or rice as I think that would go wonderfully together and it would soak it all up. If you like the combination of fruit and food, you can add half a squashed banana to the inside of each chicken breast - it is how they cook this in the American South!

For pudding I made a cake…..it is a good job we like chocolate and sugar!!