Pistachio and Almond Crusted Chicken
Serves: 2
Time: 35 mins
I really like using nuts as a crumb or a crust instead of breadcrumbs, you do need to be a bit more careful when cooking a nut crust so I tend to cook at a lower temperature so they don’t burn, but they otherwise look great and have a really cool texture plus the pistachios if you get really good fresh nuts have an amazing colour. You could say it’s really fancy schniti.
Leftovers
This meal fed four, so there are no leftovers for lunch but it will easily give you a fabulous salad with chicken for lunch tomorrow when feeding two.
What you'll need
2 chicken breasts
1/4 cup shelled pistachios
1/4 cup raw almonds skin on (or off)
14 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 pine nuts
2 eggs
1/4 cup of besan flour
1/2 bunch flat leaf parsley
1/2 cauliflower
1 large sweet potato
1 tin of chick peas
1/2 bunch coriander
1 lemon
1/8 red cabbage
Prep
Preheat oven to 200
Drain chick peas and toss with a little olive oil and salt and pepper. Sprinkle over a tray lined with baking paper and roast in the oven for 25 minutes until nice and crunchy.
While the chick peas are cooking, toast the pine nuts in a separate tray for 7 minutes, stirring halfway through.
Cut broccoli into florets and toss through oil with the zest from your lemon (you can use the chick pea bowl) and some salt and pepper. Cook for 10 minutes, just long enough to give a very slight tinge but still look a vibrant green.
Mix Yogurt
Did you do this yesterday? Slice the cucumber into thin strips lengthways then across in thin diagonals so that the cucumber looks shredded.
Wash and roughly chop the coriander, add to the yogurt along with the cucumber and squeeze of half a lemon. Season with salt and pepper and mix well to combine. Pop in the fridge for later.
Mix Salad
Shred the cabbage and give it a quick rinse under cold water. Roughly chop the parsley and add half to the cabbage and put the other half into a bowl to add to the chopped nuts.
Chop Nuts
Use a small kitchen blender to blitz the pistachios, almonds and sunflower seeds up till they are a coarse crumb; don’t worry if they don’t all chop down the same, the finer crumbs will coat the chicken and the larger crumbs will give you texture.
Prep Chicken
Lay each breast flat on your board and remove the chicken tenderloin (this is the thin flappy piece that’s attached normally but not always)
Then place your palm flat on the top of the breast and very carefully slice the chicken in half, running the knife through the chicken between your hand and the board, the result will be you have two thin breasts. repeat for the second breast.
You should now have four pieces of chicken.
Press both sides of each piece of chicken into the nut crumbs.
Heat a large non stick fry pan on a medium to high heat, with enough oil to coat the entire base of the pan generously.
Cook each side for two minutes, adjust the temperature if your pan is too hot the nuts will darken before the chicken is cooked.
Serve
Toss the pine nuts through your cabbage with the parsley some salt and pepper and the juice of half a lemon. Sprinkle the chick peas over and top with the roasted broccoli.
Serve alongside the chicken with the yoghurt dressing.
Any toasted nuts left in the pan just scatter over the top.
Enjoy!
Medium to High Heat
I cook on this setting I reckon about 90% of the time. I prefer to because if you are patient you will still reach a heat that is high enough to give you colour but not so high that delicate ingredients like nuts will burn quickly.
Lunch tomorrow
When turning this into lunch you will want to rip up the cold chicken so that it is easier to eat as a salad.