Thursday. 24/09/2015. 'Swiss Chicken, Spinach and Mushroom Bake.'

This recipe comes from 'Mary Berry Cooks the Perfect, Step by Step.' by Mary Berry. Page 102. 

Book Pic.

For me, melted cheese is food porn and I absolutely cannot resist it. When I was given this book, when I browsed it all, that Swiss Chicken dish stood out in my mind as a must do. The luscious picture of that chicken coated with that golden melting Gruyère was enough to trigger anticipating salivation.

Spinach.

The guilty pleasure is however made better, easier to admit, when you have to use 750 g of spinach. I can be cheeky and tell you who turned a pale green when he saw the three bags of spinach on the kitchen counter. It wasn't me. For someone likes his greens in moderation on his plate and come Roast day, Sunday, it is the fifty shades of brown on the plates, from the roast to the 'tatoes', passing by the gravy. But to be fair since we are kin gardener, a meat and two veg tend to be a weekly norm, which makes the vegetables being eaten with more fondness.

Beetroot Spinach from my Garden.

We are growing beetroot spinach in the garden this Autumn, but they were not quite ready when we did that recipe. It took more than fifteen minutes to destalk the entire bunch to perfection but it pays off later when the spinach melt in the mouth as you eat.

wilting the Spinach

Now I do have a little trick when I wilt down spinach, I don't use just ordinary water. I prepare a little chicken stock in advance and use spoonful of that instead. By that I don't mean that I killed a cockerel put it in the pot and infused it for hours, I am not living in a farm yet, no, I am using a bog standard stock cube, usually Knorr, which I put in 500ml of boiling water. 

The stock cube trick.

It is funny how you do get attached to your brands, I swear by Knorr while my partner swears by Bisto, it may be due to what you have seen in your home as a staple as a child, being brought up to see this or that in the cupboards. Being it habit or taste, our stock cubes war makes me laugh, especially when I see the man running to get a Knorr cube to beef up the gravy when he ran out of Bisto. Lately Knorr got that new stockpot little paste which comes in lots of different flavours, which I tried a lot and love. I used a chicken one of those in there. 

Using stock, any, the one of your preferences, infuses the spinach and gives it a yummy flavour. Mary Berry's seasoning with the grated nutmeg and her way to process the spinach properly did the ultimate trick. The result was in the plate with my partner finishing all his greens. 

Seasoned strips of chicken.

I prepared the chicken into tender strips, well seasoned and fried them to that lovely golden like the instructions. I must say that this level of attention to details comes together in the end when you finally eat the dish. Done as it says it gives a beautiful texture to the chicken which was awesome. 

chicken strips on a bed of spinach.

Then comes the preparation of the mushroom sauce which is easy 

Button Mushrooms halved.

to make. I added a little fresh thyme, because I do like its flavour with mushrooms. With mushrooms reducing quite a bit, like the spinach, I am considering to increase the amount to 300g next time rather than 200g. 

cooking the mushrooms in butter and leftover chicken juices.

In recipes it all depend if you like one ingredient or not, and you are free to ask yourself the question: do you like that ingredient or not? If you are fond of it increase, if you are not kin on it, decrease. Be playful, experiment with your taste buds. 

Normandy Cows. 

As I mentioned earlier, your childhood plays an important part in influencing your choices and taste as an adult. For example whenever I can, if I have to use a crème fraîche, I will go for an AOC Isigny Ste Mère/Isigny Sur Mer, just because I grew up not far from the place, just because I remember the cows grazing under the apple trees in the hilly fields of Normandy. It gives me that sense of security that the cows had that happy life eating grass outdoors, and were not cramped in a barn all day, hence their milk didn't turn sour in their tits. So this is the one I used here for the sauce, thinking of happy milking cows.

Le Gruyère

Plenty of grated Gruyère.

To finish, came the 'piéce de résistance', le Gruyère. Duly grated, covering every nook and cranny, an entire block of it, skip the amount, it is undisclosed... Do try this at home. Gruyère has that nutty, sweet yet slightly salty flavour which is just gorgeous. 

The melting result.

The result was absolutely fantastic: Proper comfort food on the plate. Again it was a five stars for Mary Berry's recipe. Again it gave us lunch boxes for the following day. It was not complicated to do and it just delivered on taste perfectly. We will have that bake again and again I can tell you that much. It has that lovely warmly, cosy, winter feel about it.