Pan-fried Paprika Chicken

Looking for a quick and easy recipe to cook some chicken mini fillets, we spotted this one by Mary Berry.  Checking the ingredients, we had all that was required.

Gathering the 6 ingredients together, we began by making the marinade out of a Tablespoonful each of paprika, grainy mustard, runny honey (although ours was no longer fully runny!) and Worcestershire sauce (we used biona gluten free).

Mixing the marinade in  a pasta bowl, the chicken fillet/strips were added and thoroughly coated before being set aside for half an hour.

Once it was time to cook, a small amount of oil was added to a frying pan and heated through.  We then added the chicken fillets and cooked them on one side for a couple of minutes before turning them to cook the other side.  We made sure the chicken was thoroughly cooked.

Having measured out 150ml of double cream, this was added to the remaining paprika marinade and this cream mix was poured onto the cooked chicken.  Once the pan contents were bubbling, the heat was turned down and the 'sauce' was reduced slightly.

We served our chicken dish with mixed root vegetable mash and stir fried leeks and peas.  Mary suggests, in her recipe, serving with boiled rice and young spinach which we are sure would work well.

Slow Cooker Breast of Lamb

We needed an easy meal to be ready for us after J's sports club session at the weekend and decided 'something in the slow cooker' would be a good idea.  As we had a piece of breast of lamb in the fridge, we decided to make use of that.  Also, before Christmas, we were sent some Sweet Mandarin Gluten Free sauces to try so thought we would make use of the, not so seasonal, barbecue one.  (For info - it's called a dipping sauce, but as regular readers of this blog will know, we are not ones to stick to what a label or recipe tell us to).  So we thought a slow cooker BBQ meal in January was called for.  Here's what we did.

The breast of lamb was cut into manageable sized pieces.  It was then placed in a pan of water to which a dash of vinegar was added and it was brought to the boil, covered and simmered for about 25 minutes.

This was done to start to break down the fat within this very fatty cut of meat.  At this point, the meat was drained using a sieve over a bowl (this is to catch the water - you will NEED to do this or your drains will get clogged with lamb fat... you have been warned!).  Set the bowl with the water to one side and allow the water to cool, this means the fat will solidify on the surface and then you can throw it away without risking the need for a call out from Dyno Rod...

The warm lamb breast meat was placed in the slow cooker and some of the barbecue sauce was drizzled over.  Next the meat and sauce was mixed through. 

Having placed the lid on the slow cooker, the meat was left on low to cook whilst we went out.

On arrival home, the smell that greeted us was amazing and very welcome.  Some rice and peas were cooked and the meal was served up.  We declared it the best "not home made" barbecue sauce we've tried... and we still have half a bottle left to use.

We look forward to trying the other two sauces over the coming weeks - they are Sweet Chilli and Sweet and Sour. 

Disclosure - we were sent a set of the Sweet Mandarins Gluten Free sauces by @SainsburysPR. All opinions are our own.