Nici Wickes: Affordable entertaining - Creamy Chicken and Peas

This one pan wonder of a dish is perfect to serve a group – it’s full of fresh flavours but is creamy and comforting too.  

Serves 4-6  

 

Ingredients 

3-4 free-range boneless skinless chicken breasts  

Salt and pepper to season  

1 tablespoon olive oil 

2 tablespoons butter 

1 leek or onion, finely sliced or diced 

1 cup chicken stock 

2 tablespoons lemon juice 

3 garlic cloves, minced 

½ teaspoon chilli flakes  

¼ cup cream 

1 ½ cups peas  

2 tablespoons chopped parsley 

 

Method 

1. Remove tenderloin from chicken breasts. Slice each breast horizontally in half so you have two thinner pieces plus the tenderloin per breast. Sprinkle a pinch of salt and pepper on both sides of the chicken.  

2. Heat oil in a large pan on a medium heat. Lightly brown chicken on both sides, about 2-3 minutes on each side. Remove the chicken to a plate. Add butter to the pan and add leeks or onions and cook gently until softened.   

3. In a bowl mix stock, lemon juice, garlic and chilli flakes and pour this over leeks/onions. Bring to a rapid simmer and cook for 10 minutes or so. Add chicken back into the pan to heat through then pour over cream. At this stage it can be either placed over a gentle heat or popped into an oven heated to 180 C to cook for a further 6-8 minutes until sauce is thickened a bit.  

4. Pour boiling water over frozen peas and let them sit for 5 minutes then drain. Add the peas to the pan in the final 2 minutes of cooking.   

5. To serve, top with chopped parsley and a decent grind of black pepper and serve with some buttercrunch or cos lettuce.  

 

Nici’s note  

Adding the peas towards the end of cooking ensures they keep their vibrant green colour.  

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from Newstalks'd be.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Thirteen to ten on news Talks. He'd be if you
are entertaining and you want to have a delicious, nutritious
meal that isn't too complicated, Nicky wakes our cookers here
with a great suggestion for us this morning. Gilder, Yeah,
good morning Jack. Yeah, this sounds great. So creamy chicken
and peas one pan wonder.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Yeah, one pan wonder.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
And you know, I know we've been talking a lot
about social media. Look what about social cooking and eating?
That's way better, much better's dullifying, you know. And I
think this warmer weather suddenly owns us all up a
little bit, doesn't it, Like a little flour, like a
little bloss. Yeah, Because I know myself, I've been starting
to think, oh, okay, go out a little bit. Maybe

(00:52):
you have friends over.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
That usual for me. Come on, Yeah, And this is a.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
Great difference, not too expensive. I think we've got to
think about that this year in terms of our entertaining season.
You know, it's been a bit lean this year.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah, So chicken is all affordable.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
It's probably our most affordable protein. I still encourage people
to spend a bit more and buy some good quality
chicken so that it has got some sort of nice
texture and good flavor to it. And yeah, look, lovely
big pan of this delivered to the table. You cannot
go wrong. Here's what you do. It's so super easy.
One chicken breast, I think will end up giving you

(01:29):
about three pieces, because we're going to take the tenderloin
off if it's on that's on the back. Slice the
chicken breast through horizontally in half, so you've got two
thinner pieces. But I'm using three to four of chicken
breasts here, so do that with all of them. Sprinkle
them with salt and pepper. Heat a large pan and
I mean a really big pan here on medium, Lightly
brown the chicken on both sides, and a little bit

(01:50):
of oil, and perhaps a little bit of butter too,
which would be really nice. Take that away. We're going
to cook it a little bit more later, so Darry
just want to lightly brown it on both sides. And
then I've used leaks because they're in season and they're
cheap at the moment. Onions will be fine. You just
want to soften those up in the oil. And butter

(02:11):
and those leftover sort of chicken juices and pan juices.
And then in a big bowl, mixed that this little
mixture which.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Is just going to be a beautiful jew all over.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
Cup of chicken stock, two tablespoons of lemon juice. So
there goes that beautiful acidity to wake your wake your
taste buds up street cloves of garlic, which your mince
wil crush, half a teaspoon of chili flakes, another little
flavor and anser in there, and pour that over your
cooked or softened leaks and onions. Bring it to a
simmer for about ten minutes, add the chicken back to

(02:43):
the pan so it gets a little bit more cooking.
And then we've got caught of a cup of cream jack.
Oh my goodness, it's so good. It just thickens the
saucer a little bit. So you then just bringing that
up to a gentle heat, pop it into the oven
if you like, or do it on the stop top
of the stove. It just needs to cook up for
about six to eight minutes. And then right at the end,

(03:05):
I just pour some board water over about a cup
and a half of peas, and I just love putting
peas in here because it's so springy and it's beautiful.
Let them sit for five minutes, then drain them. That'll
be enough to cook them enough, and then add those
to pan for the final two minutes. And then just
serve this at the table, perhaps with a lovely bit
of crusty bread, maybe some butter crunch or cose lettuce,

(03:28):
decent grind of black paper over it, chop parsley over
your dish. And it's just I mean, I ate this
the other night when I was testing this, and honestly,
I just couldn't.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Have been happier.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
It was sort of light and bright and fresh, but
also kind of comforting and spring as we've seen, you
know yesterday and in the South Island can tune on
us and be cold again. Yeah, will still be fine
for that, you know, or for a lovely sort of
summer lunch, a lovely sort of spring luncheon. So it's
a good eat.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
It's really sounds amazing affordable and can I just say too,
Like I'm going through the ingredients, I think I have
literally everything at home. I don't have I maybe don't
have cream.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
I don't have cream.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
But I could just pick that up from the dairy.
That's not hard, very simple, like this is all stuff
that These are pantry staples totally.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
And I'm all about the pantry staples always because I
live a long way from a supermarch.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yes, yeah, okay, can I ask though, could you could
you swap a few living like my wife is Persian
and Persians of course never have boneless, skinless skinless chicken breasts.
I mean that's like, you know, that's like sacracin So well,
could I do like a bone in option or or
something called skin? You know I could do that of course.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
Of course, you just need to cook a little bit longer.
Great question, because you're right, you know, sometimes you want
a bit more flavor in there, which the skin gives
you because it's got fat and the bone and gives you.
So look, thighs would be lovely in this chicken skin
on breasts if you can find them. I'm still old
enough to remember bone in breast. Yeah boy, they were fantastic,
all those little caramelized bones at the end, all delicious.

(05:02):
So yeah, absolutely, no, you can. You just need to
think about how long you need to cook. The trick
of this one is that cooks very quickly because of
all of those things, but by all means cook it
for a bit longer. Are you going to use thighs
or something?

Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah? Very good? Hey, top of the text machine right now.
Please tell NICKI that I absolutely love her new book.
Oh that's nice.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
That is so nice. Yes, yes, it's being read widely
and I get loads of messages and I love them
all and I respond to them all, I hope. And yeah,
that's been good. More from a Quiet.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
Kitchen very good. That's right. If you were going to
say it, I was, so I'm glad that you did.
Your publisher would be absolutely splitting if you didn't. Let
as Nicky works out, cook this morning. Her recipe will
be on the Newstalks. He'd be website very shortly, and
More from a Quiet Kitchen is available at all good bookstores,
as they say.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to news talks he'd be from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio