Pistachio Crusted Chicken with Sweet Potato Spinach Salad
Serves: 2
Time: 45 mins
I really like using nuts as a crumb or a crust instead of breadcrumbs, you do need to be a bit more careful with cooking a nut crust so you want to make sure to cook at a lower temperature so you don’t burn the nuts, so there is a touch more patience required but they look great when finished and have a really cool texture plus the pistachios they are really good fresh nuts have an amazing colour. This is a touch more expensive than your standard bread schniti, but also a touch more scrumptious.
Leftovers
Because the pistachios are pretty expensive I don’t crumb enough for leftovers, but you will have some of the chickpea dip leftover so some crudites could be cute for lunch.
What you'll need
1 chicken breasts (these tend to come in packs of two so the butcher or deli counter is a good place to get just a single)
1/2 cup shelled pistachios
14 cup sunflower seeds
1 egg
1/4 cup of besan flour
1/2 cauliflower
1 large sweet potato
1 tin of chick peas
1 lemon
100g of baby spinach
From the Pantry
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon greek yoghurt
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper
Optional Xtra for Lunch
2 carrots
1 cucumber
2 eggs
Feeding Four
To make this into a dinner for four I have added double of everything except the chicpeas to the shopping list.
Prep
Preheat oven to 200
Chop the sweet potato into bite sized chunks and place in a large mixing bowl.
Cut cauliflower into large florets and add to the bowl.
Drain chickpeas and add half the tin to the bowl, toss with a little olive oil and salt and pepper. Scatter the mix over a tray lined with baking paper and roast in the oven for 35 minutes until nice and crunchy.
Make Dip
Place the remaining chic peas in a small food processor and blitz till smooth. Add 1 tablespoon of yoghurt along with the ground cumin, salt and pepper and juice of half the lemon and blitz again till smooth.
Medium Heat
Cooking on a medium heat requires a lot of patience which I am not always good at, but it's worth the wait on this one, because if you cook on a heat that is too high your nuts are going to burn.
Crust and Cook Chicken
Place the pistachios and sunflower seeds in a small food processor and blitz down to a chunky crumb.
In a small bowl whisk 1 egg.
In a separate dish combine the bean (chickpea flour) with salt and pepper.
Place the nut mixture on a plate.
Lay the chicken 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. See image
Dust each side of the breast in the flour, then dip in egg and then coat in the nuts.
Heat a large non stick frypan on medium heat, with enough oil to coat the entire base of the pan generously.
Once than pan is hot enough it will sizzle lightly when you drop a crumb in it.
Cook each side for 1 minute at a time, then turn over.
Repeat for 6 minutes - why in short this is going to stop the nuts from colouring too quickly, so you want the chicken to get enough heat to cook through, but you avoid the nuts burning.
Plate it Pretty
Spread the chickpea dip across the base of the plate, toss all the salad ingredients in a bowl with the baby spinach and then scatter the salad over two-thirds of the dip.
Slice the chicken on a diagonal and fan out across the rest of the chickpea dip.
Drizzle lightly with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt flakes.
Enjoy!
Lunch tomorrow
A little dip and some crudites with boiled eggs make a nice little lunch for on the go.