Stuffed Chicken Breasts

• 4 chicken breasts
• 8 pieces parma ham or proscuttio
• knob of butter
• clove of garlic
• 4 shallots, finely chopped
• 250g mushrooms, finely chopped
• 1tbsp thyme, finely chopped
• splash of white wine
• white wine
• stilton/boursin cheese if wanted

Melt the butter in a frying pan over a moderate heat, add the shallots and allow to sweat for a couple of minutes. Add the garlic, thyme and mushrooms and cook for 8-10 minutes, adding a splash of wine.

Next job is to butterfly the chicken breasts. First rinse the breasts and pat dry with a paper towel to remove any slippery coating. Take a sharp knife and carefully cut horizontally through the breast but not all the way through, leave the end piece attached so you can open out into one large chicken breast.

Place the breast opened out in a tough plastic or ziplock bag. Bash gently with a rolling pin to thin the breast more and make it larger.

Cover the kitchen surface with a sqaure of clingfilm bigger than the chicken breast and lay it on it spread out. spread the mushroom out across the middle of the chicken breast from one edge to the other forming a stripe across the middle around 1.5 inches thick (don't spread the mushroom too thick, you need to roll). If you want cheese with it, put boursin or slices of stilton across the top of the mushroom (again not too thick as you need to roll). Then starting at the bottom edge roll the chicken breast up as tightly as possible into a sausage shape and wrap very tightly in cling film.

Repeat with all chicken breasts. Then put a pan of boiling water on the hob and bring to a rolling simmer and place all the chicken breasts in the pan and poach for 30 mins. Remove from pan and leave to cool.

Once cooled, get the pieces of parma ham and lay 2 pieces longways, side by side so you get a piece of ham wide enough to wrap round the chicken. Remove the chicken from the clingfilm. The poaching and tight wrapping should have sealed it together in a sausage shape. Wrap the chicken tightly with the parma ham and place in a roasting dish. Repeat for all other chicken breasts.

You can do all these steps way in advance and just leave the chicken like this ready for dinner. Put the chicken in the oven at 180 degrees 20 minutes before serving to crisp off the ham.

Serve with potatoes and vegetables and a white wine sauce if required.

Chicken Croquettes and Mushroom Croquettes (La Tasca)

• 1 packet of Smash or instant mash potato, made up
• 1 breast and leg of cooked chicken chopped finely
• 9 closed cup mushrooms chopped finely
• 1 white onion chopped fine
• 1 clove garlic crushed
• salt and pepper
• 1 tub breadcrumbs
• 2 eggs beaten
• garlic mayonnaise

Fry the onion and garlic in a pan together on a low heat, in a little olive oil, until soft. Empty the cooked onions and garlic into a bowl with the mashed potato and mix until combined. Split this mixture into two bowls.

Next cook the mushrooms in a pan with some oil again until soft and cooked. Put these into one of the bowls and combine.

Put the cooked chicken into the other bowl and combine together.

If potato is still a little hot, place both bowls in the fridge to chill, the croquettes are much easier to mould when cold.

Once chilled, get bowls out and scoop a spoon of mixture into floured hands (this is going to be messy), roll into small barrel shapes and use all mix. Place barrels onto a plate and again put back in the fridge to chill.

Switch on deep fat fryer to heat up on the highest setting.

Beat eggs and put into a flat bowl and empty breadcrumbs into another flat bowl or onto a plate. Roll each barrel shape into the egg and then into the breadcrumbs to cover.

Once fat is hot enough put a few of the croquettes in the basket and cook for around 3-4 mins until golden brown. Repeat for all.

Serve with garlic mayonnaise.

Suet Puddings - Venison and Wild Mushroom, Steak & Kidney, Liver & Bacon

Each type of pudding I made, I managed to make 9 individual puddings in moulds. I only had 9 moulds and by sheer luck each recipe made just enough to fill them, genius :) You could just make one large one in a pudding basin but I like the individual ones, the idea of being able to cut into each one!

For the suet pastry

• 225g suet
• 450g self-raising flour (I choose to use wholemeal as it doesn't settle so heavy on the stomach but tastes the same)
• 300ml water

Mix together the suet and flour then add the water, combining together until it forms a dough. If it seems too sticky and wet add more flour, too dry add a little more water. Once all combined and smooth and stretchy, wrap in cling film and put in fridge whilst making fillings. I did cheat, I used my Kenwood for the pastry with the dough hook on, did I mention how much I love my Kenwood Chef ;)

For the fillings (remember, each one makes 9 puddings)

Venison and Wild Mushroom

• 2 onions
• 2 cloves garlic
• spoon of butter
• 250g chestnut mushrooms (or other wild mushrooms e.g. Cep, ASDA only had chestnut)
• 8 chestnuts
• 500g venison
• seasoned flour
• Fresh thyme
• beef stock (I used 2 knorr jelly packets)
• 200ml red wine
• 2 tablespoons redcurrant jelly
• Gravy powder
• water

Put the chestnuts in a roast tin in the oven at 170 degrees.

Add the onions and garlic to a pan with the butter and cook on a low heat until soft. Once done, remove from pan and place in a bowl.

Next fry the mushrooms slowly in butter, again once cooked remove from pan and place in bowl.

Chop the venison up into small pieces (remember how small the pies are). Put flour into a shallow bowl and add salt and pepper and mix. Then add the venison and toss in the flour until it is all lightly coated. Add some olive oil to the onion pan from early and cook the venison until it is brown on all sides. Add this to the bowl.

Once the chestnuts have been cooking for around 30mins, take out of oven, peel, chop and add to the bowl with 4 sprigs of thyme leaves. Mix everything together well.

In a pan melt down the stock and add the redcurrant jelly and the red wine. Then add water and gravy powder until a nice thck gravy is made up.

Steak and Kidney

• 2 onions
• butter
• 300g braising steak
• 200g kidney
• 200g mushrooms
• Flour
• Salt & Pepper
• Beef stock (again 2 Knorr stock cubes)
• 200ml Guinness
• Gravy powder
• Water

Add onoins to pan with butter and cook on a low heat until soft. Add to a bowl.

Cook off mushrooms slowly in pan with butter. Add to bowl.

Chop up steak and kidney into small pieces. Put the flour in a shallow bowl and add salt and pepper and mix. Toss the steak and kidney in the flour until well coated and then cook off in onion pan until lightly browned. Add to bowl.

In a pan melt down the stock, add the Guniness and then make up a thick gravy with the water and gravy powder.

Liver & Bacon

Follow the instructions for the steak and kidney, but subsitute 400g liver for steak, 200g bacon (chopped and thick if possible) for the kidney and remove the mushrooms entirely (yes I'm bored of typing.......).

Making the pies/puddings

Right, next get the suet dough out of the fridge, leave out on side to get back to room temperature.

Grease the inside of each of the moulds with butter or just the one big pudding basin.

Find a biscuit or cookie cutter that is round and is about 1cm bigger than the moulds.

Cut a quarter off the dough. Roll this out on a floured surface and cut out 9 circles (or however many puddings you are making). Put these to one side.

Cut the rest of the dough into 9 equal piece and roll each one out to around 3-5mm thick circles (obviously larger than the moulds). Line the mould with the pastry, squishing it together where overlaps occur (suet dough is really forgiving). Scoop in one of your fillings so it reaches just below the top of the mould, do not press down or compact. Ladel in some gravy and shake the mould so the gravy sinks to the bottom and repeat until the pudding seems full. Then place one of the dough circles over the top and press round the edges to seal the top on. either cut round the edges with a knife or press hard when sealing and the excess pastry should fall off.

Cover the top of the pudding with cling film to protect the pastry. Repeat this for all the filling and moulds.

Once done either cook in an electric steamer or a steamer on the hob for 1hr.

Once cooked, remove from steamer, peel off cling film and upturn onto a plate, serve with fresh veg, mash and leftover gravy from the filling.

To freeze - if you want to freeze the excess puddings to use later then upturn them out onto a baking sheet, leave in kitchen to cool then put into fridge (cooling them makes them go more solid), leave for a couple of hours then wrap each pie individually in clingfilm and freeze.

To reheat - place in a shallow bowl (still in clingfilm) with some water in the bottom, cover whole bowl with clingfilm and put in microwave for around 5-6 minutes until hot.