Miles Gracie
Miles’ Chicken Pea-Evs
Miles Gracie
Serves: 4
Prep time: 25 mins
Cook time: 45 mins
Ingredients:
4 chicken breasts
120g frozen peas
2 large garlic cloves
2 slightly stale individual ciabatta loaves
2 eggs
plain flour
rapeseed oil
4 sage leaves
2 tablespoons of butter
sea salt
+ cocktail sticks
Veg Portions / Serving: 1
Recipe donated by Miles Gracie for Veg Power.
We love Miles’ recipe – what kid isn’t going to enjoy the preparation and look of this dish? This is a perfect one for getting kids having fun in the kitchen, and is just as fun and tasty as it looks.
Method:
Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Whizz the ciabatta loaves up in a food processor until they have become breadcrumbs.
Boil the peas for 2 minutes, drain and refresh in very cold water to keep them bright green. Drain again. Finely chop the garlic cloves and sage leaves and fry for twenty seconds in the butter. When you can smell them, they are done. Add them to the peas with their butter and a pinch of sea salt, bash the mixture up a bit with a potato masher and put it to one side.
Coat the bottom of an oven dish with a tablespoon of oil and put it in the oven to get hot. Place a chicken breast on a board and put your weaker hand flat on the top of it. Carefully run a small sharp knife parallel to your hand, through the side of the breast to make a pocket and stuff it with two heaped teaspoons of the pea mixture. Close the pocket with a cocktail stick – like a sewing stitch – and then do the same with the other three breasts.
Now you’ll need three large bowls. Put a couple of handfuls of plain flour in one, crack the eggs into another and beat them and pour the breadcrumbs into the third. Make a line starting with chicken breasts, then the three bowls – flour, then eggs, then breadcrumbs. Holding just the tip of the smallest end of a chicken breast, dip it in first the flour, then the eggs, then the breadcrumbs, and make sure it is well‐coated with each.
Take the oven dish out of the oven and carefully place the chicken pea‐evs onto the oiled base. Drizzle them with a little more rapeseed oil and roast them in the oven for about 40 minutes until they reach 75C inside (you can check this with a meat thermometer), or until the juices run clear when you insert a sharp knife into the chicken. Serve with olive oil roasted potatoes, aioli and lots of veg.
Engaging Kids
Kids who engage regularly with veg through veg-themed activities, such as arts and crafts, sensory experiences, growing and cooking are shown to be more likely to eat the veg they engage with. Encouraging kids to engage and play with veg is the handy first step to them developing a good relationship with veg and life-long healthy eating.
Kids in the kitchen
What kid isn’t going to enjoy mashing the peas with a masher, peeling the garlic, cracking the egg and dipping the chicken in to the flour, egg and then the breadcrumbs? Bring on those messy fingers!
Activities
While getting kids to interact with veggies for real and using their senses to explore them is best, encouraging hands off activities like arts & crafts, puzzles & games or at-home science experiments can be a great start, particularly for those who are fussier eaters or struggle with anything too sensory. Use these veg-themed activities as a stepping stone to interacting with the veg themselves. We have loads of crafty downloads here, puzzles here, and quirky science with veg here.
Sensory
Once you feel your child is ready to engage a little more, you can show them how to explore the veg you have on hand with their senses, coming up with playful silly descriptions of how a veg smells, feels, looks, sounds and perhaps even tastes. Find ideas, videos and some simple sensory education session ideas to get you started here.
Serving
The moments before food is offered can be a perfect opportunity for engagement that can help make it more likely a child will eat it! Giving children a sense of ownership in the meal can make a big difference to their feelings going into it and the pride they take in it. You know your child best, but if you aren’t sure where to start, we have some fun and simple ideas for easy roles you can give them in the serving process over here.
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