Chicken Kiev

The chicken kiev has been having a bit of a moment recently and when Felicity Cloake wrote about making the 'perfect' method recently on the Guardian Word of Mouth Blog, I decided to give it a go myself. Taking tips from this piece and my brother Daniel who makes them regularly, I had a bash and the result was lovely. Sadly some of the glorious garlic butter managed to escape despite by best efforts, so if anybody has any tips on keeping it in please do share them!

4 chicken breasts

100g butter, softened

2 cloves garlic, crushed

Bunch of chopped parsley

2 eggs

100g plain flour

3 slices of white bread blitzed into breadcrumbs

Salt and pepper to taste

Firstly in a bowl mix the butter, garlic and parsley till combined and then pop into the freezer.

Get three bowls at the ready - pop the flour and a generous sprinkling of salt and pepper into one, the breadcrumbs into another and in the third beat the two eggs.

Use a mallet or a rolling pin to bash the chicken breasts until they're all a similar thickness to make sure they cook at the same speed.

With a sharp knife make an incision into the side of each breast. To keep the meat as moist as possible, I tried to make the little pocket almost as long as the breast, keeping about a 1cm border from the edge. Then take the garlic butter from the freezer and use a teaspoon to cram in as much as possible into the pocket. Press firmly shut and squeeze to try and stop that butter escaping during cooking.

Firstly coat the chicken in the seasoned flour until fully coated, then do the same in the beaten egg. Finally coat in the breadcrumbs.

Heat a smidge of butter in a pan and once hot place the chicken into the pan. Cook for 3-4 minutes on each side until nicely browned and then transfer to an oven-proof dish and pop in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until cooked through and then serve with your choice of accompaniments - for me this will always be chips!