Roaming Roosters has a great selection of weeknight-friendly, quick cook meats – from their Speciality Sausage to these Chicken Parcels. It’s a thigh joint, deboned and stuffed with their Old English pork or Cumberland sausage mix, then wrapped in a bit of bacon. Simple to cook, with no need for a marinade or dressing.
I cooked them this weekend with a puy lentil salad that I improvised. My latest resolution is to explore alternatives to starchy ‘white’ carbs (potatoes and pasta), such as lentil, wild rice and polenta. I call this creation a ‘red’ puy lentil salad because all my leftovers that went into it were red!
For the chicken parcels:
- Place on a layer of tin foil in a tray and cook at 190C for 30 minutes or until cooked through
- It doesn’t need covering as the bacon keeps the meat succulent inside
For the ‘red’ puy lentil salad:
- Cover 1 cup of puy lentils with 2 cups of water (substitute some or all of this with stock for a tastier flavour, or with leftover red wine like I did) in a pan, and bring to the boil
- Simmer for 20-30 minutes until the lentils have absorbed all the liquid
- Drain and let cool a little
- Scrub some radishes, top and tail and finely slice
- Slice some fresh beetroot
- Arrange the radish and beetroot around/on the lentil salad, and drizzle with a homemade dressing such as a honey/mustard/balsamic vinaigrette
- Place your chicken parcel on top and you have a quick, easy and very healthy meal
The chicken parcel retained its moisture thanks to the bacon, and as it was thigh meat bore a lovely rich flavour. Because of the sausage and bacon it will be a bit salty, so a good side salad that has the sweetness of beetroot and the bitterness of the radishes helps to stabilise it.
