Tag: cheese

Chicken crumble with leek and mushroom

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This September marks the beginning of the fourth year of living with my flatmate. We were thrown together in our first year of uni, with four other girls, and carried on living together, with three of the others, in our second year as we all dealt with the drama of being 19 and having a landlord who’d renovate your manky bathroom but dispose of the old toilet by putting it in your wheelie bin.

Chicken crumble with leek and mushroom // The Dinner BellWe parted ways after that year living at the top of a very steep hill, only to be brought together again by the universe when we both moved to London. The universe is nice like that.

But in those three years and sharing kitchen space  and secrets, I’d never once made her this old family classic. Until now, of course.

Back home, this is “chickeny crumbly stuff” because, well, it’s chickeny and it’s crumbly and the name stuck and became part of family legend. It’s soul food – the sort of dish that hugs you as you eat it. It’s nourishment that’ll have you going back for seconds and fighting with your siblings for the crunchiest bit of topping. It’s exactly what you need to help you embrace grey skies as we hurtle towards months of 4pm sunsets and cocoa.

Serves 4.
Ingredients

150g stale/dry bread
110g cheddar cheese
500g chicken breast, chopped into chunks
200g mushrooms, chopped
1 medium leek, chopped
1 tin cream of chicken soup
1tbsp mayonnaise
Lemon juice

Chicken crumble with leek and mushroom // The Dinner BellMethod

1) In a food processor, blitz the bread until roughly crumbed. Add the cheese, and blitz again until the whole mixture is of breadcrumb texture – some lumps are fine. You can do this the night before and refrigerate if you like to be one step ahead.

2) Preheat the oven to 170C. Fry the chicken breast chunks in a large frying pan over medium heat until just browning. Add the mushrooms and leek, and continue to fry until the leeks are soft.

3) Add the soup, mayo, and a squeeze of lemon juice and simmer for about 5 minutes.

4) Transfer to an overproof dish, cover with breadcrumb topping, and bake for about 30 minutes, until golden and bubbling. Serve with more vegetables, if you’re that way inclined.

Can also be split into small pots or ramekins for individual portions. 

Cheddar & pesto stuffed tear ‘n’ share rolls

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Hands up if you feel like switching your oven on right now!

Tumbleweed, as expected. The nation’s bakers are on strike. Grass is the colour of sand, and people are the colour of lobsters. As we enter the third week of real summer, the country is wilting.

I’m already dreaming of jeans and jackets and pumpkin puree in everything. I’m planning what I’ll make when the temperatures dip below 20 again – hey, remember that? – and I’m not avoiding the oven for fear of melting away like a snowman. Continue reading →

Cheddar & mustard scones

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Throughout university, or at the very least towards the end of it, on those long nights of sitting in the library rather than going out like everyone else seems to be, the 9-5 life sounds pretty perfect. Evenings to yourself, not having to work over dinner, and long weekends with lie-ins, afternoons in beer gardens, and, well, freedom. You sort of forget about bills, washing up, and truly dull tasks like washing the shower curtain.

A lot of my friends are now finishing uni, terrified of the current climate for graduates and desperate to tackle adult life head on, away from the family home. Others have recently broken into the job market, having graduated last year (three cheers for the competitive nature of journalism!), while many more are still juggling internships and work experience with earning a living. Continue reading →

Christmas gifts: two-cheese biscuits

When you’ve lived away from home for a while but still go back for Christmas, you get used to hearing, “Is there any particular food you want me to get in?” around the first week of December. This year, there was one less thing on my usual list of Christmas visit must-haves, because my mother entrusted me with the secret of these two-cheese biscuits. They don’t look much, these wee biccies, but oh boy do they pack a punch. Supposedly, they taste even better after a few days, but they’ve never been around long enough for us to test that theory.

Although I’m posting these as a Christmas gift (in-laws, I’m lookin’ at you), they’d also be great after Christmas to help to use up the leftover nuts and Stilton you just couldn’t fit into your stomach. Yep. they’ve got Stilton in them – but in my experience, even Stilton haters love these.

Recipe makes around 50 biscuits 5cm in diameter – perfect to pop straight in your mouth! They are happy to be frozen (and I confess to sneaking to the freezer to eat a few there and then. Oops).  Continue reading →