The Christmas and New Year holiday period is the time of year where leftovers form a huge part of many meals. Whether it be leftover turkey on sandwiches, leftover trimmings picked at as snacks, or leftover cakes and desserts eaten when desired, millions of people are looking to ensure that the excess food which they bought but were never likely to need does not go to waste. This recipe is therefore devoted to leftovers. It is composed of leftover roast chicken and mashed potatoes, with an interesting and delicious little salad served as an accompaniment. (Note that the salad was a last minute experiment but it did work very well!)
Ingredients
4 slices of leftover roast chicken breast
3 tbsp leftover mashed potatoes
1 celery stick
1 tbsp raisins
6 chestnuts
2 tbsp low fat natural yoghurt
Mixed pickles of choice
Salt and pepper
Butter for frying
Method
It is important to start the preparation of the salad first. This is principally so that the raisins can soak up some of the yoghurt liquid, both that they may soften and that the salad will not be too fluid. The celery stalk should be washed and sliced across the way to a thickness of 1/4". The celery pieces, raisins and yoghurt should be mixed together in a small bowl, covered with clingfilm and refrigerated.
Although I have eaten roasted chestnuts many times in my life, I had never attempted to roast them myself until a few days ago. I therefore did the obvious and consulted Google for instructions/advice. I used only a few chestnuts on each occasion but the first four or five attempts were disastrous - the chestnuts were not only over-cooked but, frankly, wholly inedible! It actually quite literally left me wondering whether the people who published these recipes had indeed actually ever attempted them...
It is only fair, I feel, in this respect that I present the perfect recipe which I discovered for roasting chestnuts:
How to Roast Chestnuts
When the chestnuts are ready, they should be left to cool before being halved to peel them and then halved again in to quarters. Make sure that you remove the brown inner skin, as well as the shell. The quartered chestnuts should then be mixed in to the yoghurt salad and the dish returned to the refrigerator.
A little bit of butter should be melted in a non-stick frying pan. The cold mashed potato should be compressed in to a ball and flattened in to a disc, exactly the same way as when making hamburgers. It should then be fried in the butter over a medium heat for around five minutes each side until nicely browned.
The chicken should be arranged on a plate, the fried mashed potato added and a spoonful of salad and pickles of choice served as a final garnish.
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