His "Spiced Chicken Parcel" uses elements from all three recipes to produce a tasty and filling meal which is fairly quick and easy to make. He used chicken thighs as the dark meat tends to be a bit more flavoursome.
I had to use frozen Filo pastry and as there were six sheets in the pack, I added one extra layer to the parcel.
This might also work well with turkey meat, as a boxing day solution to all the leftover turkey!
Spicy chicken and rice are bundled together in in a lovely crisp parcel of buttery filo pastry in this easy, yet unusual, chicken supper.
Ingredients:
4 chicken thighs, skin and bones removed
4 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp ground turmeric
1 tbsp garam masala
200g/7oz basmati rice
400ml/14fl oz chicken stock
75g/2½oz butter
freshly ground black pepper
5 filo pastry sheets
Preparation method
Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.
Remove the skin and bones from the chicken thighs and roughly chop.
Warm the olive oil in a large pan. Add the chicken and spices and cook on a low heat for three minutes, taking care that the spices do not burn.
Add the rice and the stock to the same pan. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Replace the pan lid and allow to cook for 10 minutes.
Melt the butter and season generously with pepper.
Lay a sheet of filo pastry on a large baking tray and brush generously with the peppery butter. Lay a second, third and fourth sheet of filo, brushing each one with more butter as you go.
When the 10 minutes of rice cooking has elapsed, evenly spread the chicken and rice mixture on one half of the filo rectangle.
Brush around the edges of the mixture with more butter and then fold the empty filo side over the mixture like a book and press down the edges.
Take the remaining filo sheet, soak it in the butter, crumple and place on top of the parcel as decoration.
Bake in the oven for 30 minutes.
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