Belinda Ollins: I’m going to show you today how to prepare chicken and vegetable casserole parcel. It’s a great recipe. It’s very quick. It takes 5 minutes, 30 minutes of cooking time but it’s straightforward. So, we’re going to start with chicken breast and this is with one child but you want to remove of and of the nerves and fatty bits. And that’s more and it’s ready.
Justine Sharpe: I think the important thing for children is to watch the salt, no added salt. Watch the sugar, no added sugar. Watch the fats, no added fats. And then after you’ve worried about all of the avoiding, get a big balance of different types of foods.
Belinda Ollins: So, you want about 50 grams of courgettes but to be honest you just want to us about a quarter of a courgette and that’s probably enough bearing in mind it’s one portion and a stick of celery, just chop off the ends. I normally peel my celery because I find for children sometimes it will be a bit stringy, so if you peel it you just take the stringy bits out and it’s easier if it’s just less stringy. It’s a nice way to get kids to eat the vegetables if you happen to have a problem with that sometimes.
Justine Sharpe: All vegetables are good. Different vegetables convey different vitamins and minerals. If I was pushed to pick the best vegetables out there, I would say broccolis are very good example of a good vegetable. It has a wide range of vitamins and minerals, good source of vitamin C. Red peppers are fantastic.
Belinda Ollins: So, you just want to slice your celery out small. And again I mean I’m showing you very round about quantities here because you can adjust them. So, that’s probably enough celery. Leave it all to the side and you’re going to use about half of a big carrot. This is an absolutely enormous carrot so I’m going to cut it in half. The other way too so pieces aren’t too large.
Justine Sharpe: The difference with the preschool children is this, they won’t often be able to manage an adult size portion and all children are in different sizes and shapes. So, as a general rule, what we advise is that the parent gets the child’s hand and put the vegetables in and whatever the amount that the child can hold, that is a child size portion.
Belinda Ollins: And then with leek, you want to just cut the end off, remove the tough out of leaves because they’re not so nice. And then wash it. So, remove the tough out to level and then you just want to get the end chopped just to make sure it’s clean inside so you can flick through and just see that it doesn’t have dirt in there. And then, you just want to cut the white bit. You’re basically just going to sprinkle all of these vegetables around the meat in a foil parcel. So, I’ve actually made out some stock. I’ve cheated. I’ll have to be on a—I’ve used a chicken stock cube. Normally, I wouldn’t use a chicken stock cube but I might then because I have too mush stokes.
Justine Sharpe: Stock cubes are quite salty and so if you were to make your own natural stock from—if you’re boiling of your vegetables, you use your vegetable stock and maybe if you’re boiling out your chicken or you’re cooking your chicken, you throw in your bones, and you just store in perfect stock.
Belinda Ollins: You’re making a parcel so you want enough liquid to cover the chicken about three quarters. So, it’s probably about right quantity. I also sometimes put tomato puree in. This is optional, you can decide that you want to use it or that you don’t want to use it probably about half a tablespoon, just gives it a nice flavor but it’s nice both ways. And you just mix your tomato puree in with your stock. We’re going to today this recipe today with couscous, another great one I’m going to show you which is very straightforward to prepare. But you can do it with mashed potatoes, sweet mashed potatoes. You could do it with pasta, fettuccini so it’s quite easy to mix with anything as far as the company will not write. Then we want to take as piece of silver foil and you’re going to make a parcel with your foil which is great because it helps, there’s not much washing out. You want a piece of foil that’s big enough to put the vegetables and the chicken on , you need to wrap it on a parcel. Okay, put a bit of olive oil, just a tiny bit on the foil. And just place your chicken in the olive oil and then just take off the vegetables, put them on the bottom, some courgettes. And as I said you can do this with anything you got in your fridge, vegetable wise so you can mix. Put your chicken on top. Put the rest of the vegetables on top. And you more or less have an instant chicken casserole. Bring up the sides of your foil because we’re going to be pouring liquid in and you don’t want the liquid to pour out. So, bring your sides up, both ends, and just squeeze them quite tight so when you’re cooking because it’s going to be in the oven for about 30 minutes, when the liquid is hot, it doesn’t pour out. Okay, let me take your chicken stoke and your tomato puree. So, you’re going to pour the liquid in. I’ve actually made a little bit too much liquid here but just to give you an idea, you want the chicken to be surrounded by liquid because it’s the liquid that’s going to make the couscous nice in the pasta.
And then you just totally see on your parcel. So, the liquid doesn’t turn to steam and disappear by the time you open it up. And there you have a little chicken and vegetable casserole parcel. You want to have your oven preheated to 180 and you’d basically bake that in the oven. Take your baking tray and put it in the oven for 30 minutes.
Justine Sharpe: But just be careful not to go—chicken for instance, breast chicken, excellent. Chicken nuggets, not such an exceptional and source of protein because often the nuggets have been made by reformed chicken. So, you’ve got added additives and various things in there so it’s a little bit tainted.
Belinda Ollins: This is the quickest way on the planet to make couscous. Those steamers, you can see just the chicken stock. Okay, that’s nice and that’s dissolved. And again, couscous is funny. It’s a bit like rice. It looks like you’re not using very much, but you only need a tiny bit because it doubles up, just see how much that makes. And you tend to want to put enough liquid to go about a centimeter above the layer of the actual couscous itself because the couscous is going to absorb all the liquid and fluff up so you will not put enough in. So, it gets a nice and moist and it’s probably—and then you cover your bowl with a plate and that’s it. You leave it for three or four minutes. It doesn’t really matter now, the chicken is in the oven so we can just leave it like this until we’re ready to use it. And you just set it aside.
So, the chicken has been in the oven for 30 minutes and were’ going to take it out and serve it out with the couscous. Okay. So, remember what I said with couscous that you don’t need a steamer. Let’s hope this has worked. Okay. So, the couscous has really absorbed all the liquid. We look like we started with another liquid but there’re none left now. So, you take a fork. I wouldn’t use a spoon because you crush the grains and you just want to fluff it up and there you go, you have your couscous. So, we will now get the chicken, put some couscous on the plate because we’re going to put the chicken on the top. So, we’re going to open up our chicken. I love cooking the chicken and the vegetables in this way because the vegetables are steamed in their own juices, so all the goodness and the minerals and the vitamins are still intact. And you haven’t lost them in the cooking liquid. And actually I don’t need an oven glove.
Justine Sharpe: The chicken and vegetable casserole parcel, again is a really good example of a balance. It’s good to see that there are vegetables that has meats and the parcel is the sort of the starchy bit around the outside.
Belinda Ollins: Ad then you’ve got the gravy. If you want to just pour a bit of the gravy on with all the vegetable juice, and then you have a chicken casserole with vegetables that really took you about five minutes to prepare and 30 minutes to cook. And it’s delicious so enjoy.
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