Pesto Chicken with Sundried Tomatoes and Toasted Pine Nuts

This is a quick and easy meal, but tastes fantastic. Put it with some good pasta and some garlic flatbread...sorted!

You can get all chefy and make your own pesto (I will do this and show you how). But using a good pesto in a jar, this meal takes 10/15 minutes, perfect if you haven't got lots of time to cook. This for me is a fresh tasting dish and has great variety of textures from the soft chicken to the crunch of the toasted pine nuts to the juicy sundried tomatoes.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

A Jar Of Good Quality Pesto

Two Breasts of Chicken (from a quality Butcher)

50g Pine Nuts

300g Good Quality Pasta (I use: Tesco Finest Pennoni Rigati)

Sundried Tomatoes

Hand Full of Fresh Basil Leaves

Extra Virgin Olive Oil


WHAT TO DO:

In pan bring to the boil a pan of water and cook the pasta,

HANDY TIP:

Put some olive oil and salt in the water when cooking the pasta (the oil stops the pasta sticking to each other and the pan and the salt flavours the pasta while cooking). You want a slight bite to the pasta...nothing worse then sloppy mushy pasta!

Heat your frying pan on a medium heat and add a splash of oil. Cut your chicken into strips and then half (use chunky bits of chicken as you want that succulent texture, don't cut them to thinly) and brown in the pan for around 10 minutes... REMEMBER: chicken should not be pink in the middle! When the chicken is nearly browned, add the pine nuts for a couple of minutes to lightly toast them (the colour changes only slightly, be carefull not to burn).

HANDY TIP:

I'm not trying to teach you to suck eggs! but the reason for browning the meat (any meat) is that you keep the moisture inside, less chance of the meat going dry.

Once the meat is browned spoon 2 tbs of the pesto into the pan, stir in, then add some freshly torn basil leaves and 8 chopped Sundried tomatoes (again don't cut them to thinly as you want the juicy texture, halves or thirds will be perfect).

Once all components are done, drain the pasta and tip into the sauce (the Italians always mix the sauce in with the pasta, its only us Brits that have sauce on top of the pasta) and serve.

Serve with garlic flatbread...told you it was simple and easy!

Recipe by Matt Grice

Photo taken by Rach Grice

Meatballs in a Tomato, Garlic & Chilli Sauce

A SIMPLE DISH WITH WITH TONS OF FLAVOUR

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

Tomato Sauce

400g Chopped Tomatoes
3 Crushed Garlic Cloves
1 tbsp Tomato Puree
Fresh Ginger, Finely Chopped (thickness of a £1 coin)
1/3 Fresh Medium Chilli (finely chopped)
Hand Full of Fresh Basil Leaves

Meatballs

500g Minced Beef (not lean)
2 Pieces of Bread (blitz in a mixer and make fine bread crumbs)
2 tsp Dried Oregano
1tsp Smoked Paprika
1 Free Range Egg
6 Large Basil Leaves

300g Good Quality Pasta (I use Tesco Finest Pennoni Rigati)
Parmesan Cheese
Extra Virgin Olive Oil

WHAT TO DO:

In a bowl put the minced beef, oregano, paprika, egg (beaten), basil leaves (finely chopped), and bread crumbs. Using your hands mix together the ingredients well, the egg does make the mixture squelchy (love that word!) but this helps the meatballs stay together and not fall apart.

HANDY TIP:

After trying different recipes i have found that breadcrumbs help keep the meatballs moist, as well as using un-lean beef.

Roll the mixture into golf ball size balls and place on a tray (you should get about 12 meatballs from this mixture) cover with clingfilm and put in the fridge (best kept in fridge for couple of hours at least to firm up. (If you havent got the time don't worry, it should still stay together).

In a pan over a medium heat pour a splash of olive oil, put in the garlic, chopped chili, and finely chopped ginger (don't worry to much on how finely these are chopped or crushed as you will be sieving the sauce later on). Gently fry for 5 minutes, stiring so ingredients do not colour or catch. Once the flavours have released in the oil pour in the chopped tomatoes and stir, add the tomato puree, rip and tare the basil leaves and add to the sauce. Simmer the sauce for around 10 minutes so the ingredients infuse.



Sieve the sauce into another pan, making sure you squeeze every last bit of liquid out of the sieve. leave the sauce to one side.

Handy Tip:

I have found that by sieving the sauce the flavours are infused  more intensely and not everyone appreciates biting into ginger or garlic!

In a frying pan drizzle a little  olive oil on a medium heat, place the meatballs into the pan and brown (by browning this helps keeps the moisture inside of the meatballs)make sure all sides of the meatballs are browned, keep in the pan for around 10 minutes moving occasionally so not to burn.

In another pan bring to the boil a pan of water and cook the pasta, while doing this re-heat the sauce (do this gently). When heated, put the meatballs into the sauce so all the meatballs are covered.

Handy Tip:

Put some olive oil and salt in the water when cooking the pasta, the oil stops the pasta sticking to each other and the pan, and the salt flavours the pasta while cooking.

Once all elements are ready, put the pasta onto your serving bowls, (I drizzle olive oil over the pasta) spoon the meatballs on top of the pasta and grate some Parmesan cheese over the top of the meatballs. Finally, place a few basil leaves on top.

Great with some Italian bread

Photo's by Matt Grice