How to make mouth-watering Chicken Kievs

This month, Domini Kemp shares her take on timeless, tasty recipes

Chicken Kievs with horseradish mash. Picture: Dean Carroll

There are a few guaranteed ways to curry favour - tickets to the Wimbledon final, wads of cash, big bunches of flowers – but one of the cheapest and most reliable is fried chicken. Throw in some garlic butter that gently oozes out as you slice into the golden crunchy perimeter and you’ll be set for life.

Another winner is beef Wellington. I have no idea why, but my youngest child thinks beef Wellington is the nicest thing she’s ever eaten. Many recipes call for a layer of thin pancake in between the mushroom and the beef to stop soggy bottom pastry syndrome, but it’s just too much beige for me and interferes with the beefy, salty umami of mushrooms, Parma ham, and seared beef, so I usually leave it out.

This cacio e pepe recipe was inspired by an Instagram story from Martha de Lacey, a food writer and online cookery teacher, who created a reel containing deliciously obscene quantities of butter, capers and truffle pecorino. It was divine.

As a committed low-carber, when I do occasionally eat pasta or bread, it needs to be damn well worth it. I made a portion of this (starter size!) and my goodness, it was an absolute joy to eat and so incredibly simple to boot.

To top it off, I flirted with crème caramel recipes and some sort of flan. The restaurant Uno Mas in Dublin does a killer flan - I will try to coax the recipe out of them - but in the meantime, this slightly abbreviated version from Ottolenghi worked out really well. It also behaved impeccably when turfed upside down to reveal a deep amber-varnish colour that looked just like it did in his book.

Between the cacio e pepe, chicken Kiev and flan, you’ve got something close to a death row meal. Or at least a meal that will curry unending favours.

Chicken Kievs with horseradish mash

Serves 4

This is my new favourite way to cook chicken Kiev as there is no deep fat frying, just a good dousing of olive oil and a hot oven. This makes it a lot more doable for larger numbers.

Ingredients

30g flat-leaf parsley

30g toasted pine nuts

20g grated Parmesan

8 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

Salt and pepper

200g butter, softened

4 large chicken breasts, skinless

Cooked greens, to serve

Finely chopped chives, to garnish

For the crumb

70g panko breadcrumbs

30g grated Parmesan

4 eggs, beaten

100g flour

100ml olive oil

For the horseradish mash

1kg potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks

100ml cream

100g butter

2 tbsp horseradish sauce

4 tbsp crème fraîche

Method

1. In a food processor, whizz together the parsley, pine nuts, Parmesan, and garlic with plenty of salt and pepper until smooth. Add the soft butter and blitz until well mixed, then scrape out onto a sheet of clingfilm. Wrap and roll the butter into a sausage shape, twisting the ends of the clingfilm to seal, then freeze. This makes lots of butter, more than you need for this recipe, but it’s awkward to whizz less butter. Keep any extra for future Kievs or to drizzle over other cooked meats – it’s really delicious and versatile.

2. When the butter is good and cold, make a horizontal slit in the fattest part of the chicken breasts and stuff with a good amount of butter. Close it up as well as you can, then flip over the end of the chicken so it looks more like a boned chicken thigh. Chill the breasts until you are ready to cook them – a couple of hours or you can even do this the night before.

3. When you’re ready to cook everything, preheat your oven to 180C and set up your crumbing station. Mix the panko and Parmesan together, season well and spread out on a plate. Beat the eggs well in a bowl and place beside the breadcrumbs. Spread the flour onto a second plate and season really well with salt and pepper.

4. Dunk the chicken as follows: flour, egg, flour, egg, breadcrumbs, then place on a plate or tray. Chill the prepared chicken for at least 30 minutes.

5. In the meantime, make the mash. Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil, then add the potatoes and gently boil for fifteen minutes. Drain the cooked potatoes in a colander, then cover with a clean tea towel and leave to sit for a few minutes to dry.

6. Heat the remaining mash ingredients together with some seasoning in a pot, then add to a bowl with the potatoes. Mix together and mash well, then season to taste and reserve until ready to serve.

7. Place the chicken on a non-stick baking tray, drizzle generously with the olive oil and place in the oven to cook. After about ten minutes, turn the Kievs over carefully and cook for a further 15-20 minutes or until a deep golden brown – hopefully the butter has remained inside. Serve alongside the mash and cooked greens with a sprinkling of chopped chives and an extra knob of the garlic and parsley butter.

Beef Wellington

Serves 4

The big focus of this dish is the beef Wellington itself, but to make it a full meal, serve with potatoes and greens of your choice - I recommend the horseradish mash here too as it is so delicious. I served this Wellington with some lightly sauteéd cabbage, but any green vegetable will work. I haven’t included a sauce recipe here, as I don’t think you need it between the mushrooms and juicy beef, but a red wine jus would work well if you want to serve one.

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil or beef dripping

4 very cold fillet steaks, about 200g each

Salt and freshly-ground black pepper

4 pinches caster sugar

2-3 knobs butter

2 large white onions, peeled and finely diced

Few sprigs thyme

500g button mushrooms, very finely chopped

80ml cream

8 slices Parma ham

Small bunch chopped chives

1 x 320g sheet ready-rolled puff pastry

Flour, for dusting

2 egg yolks, beaten

Method

1. In a frying pan, heat the olive oil or beef dripping until nearly smoking then sear the steaks well on both sides. Normally, you’d bring the steaks to room temperature before cooking, but for this recipe you want them super cold so they stay nice a medium-rare after their blast in the oven.

2. Season the steaks with the salt, pepper and pinch of sugar on each side - this will help you get a good charred crust - then add the knobs of butter and baste. Remove the steaks from the pan (don’t wash it!) and allow to cool, before chilling down again in the fridge or freezer until really cold, about an hour.

3. Using the same meaty pan, add the onion, thyme, mushrooms and cream and cook until the mixture is really soft and quite dry, then allow to cool.

4. When both the beef and mushrooms are feeling very chilly, lay three rectangular sheets of cling film onto a work surface and place two slices of Parma ham on top. Spread a quarter of the mushroom mix on top and sprinkle with chives, then place the steak in the middle and wrap in the cling film like a money bag. Repeat with the other steaks, then chill again for at least an hour.

5. Divide the pastry into four pieces and, using a lightly floured surface, roll each out until you are sure it will fully wrap the steak parcels. Get four pieces of greaseproof paper and put the sheets of pastry onto each sheet of paper. Unwrap the steak parcels and place each in the middle of one of the pastry sheets. Pull up the edges of the pastry to wrap the steak, then brush the seams with egg yolk and seal/smooth out. Flip the parcels over so that the “good” side is facing up, then chill for another ten minutes. Brush the parcels with the egg yolk, then chill again for ten minutes and brush with egg yolk. You should have four parcels, seam side down, smooth and moulded into a nice round shape. Chill for an hour in the fridge. Again, you could do this a few hours in advance – especially if your mushroom mixture is quite dry.

6. When everything is chilled and you’re ready to cook, preheat your oven to 190C and place a non-stick baking tray in the oven to heat up. Just before baking, score the pastry lightly and discard the greaseproof paper. Place the parcels on the hot baking tray and cook for about 12 minutes for rare meat or 15 for medium-rare. Allow to rest for a few minutes, then slice in half and serve with greens, potatoes and an extra sprinkling of chives.

Cacio e pepe

Serves 4

I’ve kept this quantity quite small so that you can serve it as a starter or main course alongside some sides, but if you want a big, comforting bowl of this, simply scale up.

Ingredients

200g nastrini or spaghetti

100g butter

2 tbsp capers, drained

1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed

Good glug olive oil

200g pecorino, finely grated

50g Parmesan, grated, plus extra to serve

Salt and lots of black pepper

Method

1. Place a large pot of salted water on to boil and cook the pasta until al dente. Drain, but reserve a ladleful of pasta water.

2. In the meantime, heat the butter in a small saucepan until just starting to brown, then take off the heat and add the capers and garlic.

3. Toss the olive oil through the pasta, then add to the pan with the butter mix. Add the cheese and toss lightly. If you need it to loosen it up, add some of the pasta water.

4. Season with lots of salt and black pepper and serve straight away. Extra Parmesan over the top works a treat.

Orange and chilli flan

Serves 6-8

The original recipe this is based on calls for ancho chilli, which can be found in Fallon & Byrne in Dublin, but a good pinch of regular chilli flakes with some paprika works just fine.

Ingredients

120g caster sugar

Good pinch chilli flakes

Good pinch paprika

270g tin sweetened condensed milk

100ml double cream

400ml milk

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Zest and juice of 1 orange

Good pinch ground cinnamon

Good pinch sea salt

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 150C. Place a non-stick square pan, approximately 20 x 20cm, into the oven to warm. Find a suitable-sized serving plate that you can flip the flan onto – it will need to be bigger than the non-stick pan. You’ll also need to find a larger baking dish that the non-stick pan can sit into as you need to cook the flan in a water bath.

2. Put the sugar in a small non-stick saucepan and gently heat until it melts and cooks out to a deep amber colour. Do not stir, as it can easily crystallise, just swirl it around occasionally. Add the chilli flakes and paprika, then pour the caramel onto the warm non-stick tin, swirling it around so it the base is fully covered. Set aside.

3. Blitz the condensed milk, double cream, milk, eggs, vanilla, orange zest, and cinnamon together in a food processor with a little more chilli and paprika. Pour into the non-stick caramel tin.

4. Place the mixture-filled tin into the larger roasting tin and put in the oven. Leave the door open so you can fill the larger tin halfway with hot water to create a water bath, then shut the door and cook for 40-50 minutes. It will go a nice even brown-ish colour but still needs to be a little wibbly wobbly wonder. Remove it from the oven and then carefully remove it from the water bath. Once at room temperature, cool overnight in the fridge.

5. Before serving, remove from the fridge and run your knife around the outside. Flip onto a serving plate. Hopefully it releases itself and you can spoon over some of the fresh orange juice and a little sea salt, plus a few more chilli flakes if you can handle the heat.