Chicken, mushrooms persillade and potato puree

Nice main course to follow a salad of some kind.

Serves 2

For the chicken:

2 skin-on chicken breast fillets
Vegetable oil
Salt
Pepper
Squeeze of lemon juice

Pre-heat the oven to 175C.  Marinate the chicken briefly in the other ingredients as it comes to room temperature.  Place a small roasting tin over a flame until hot.  Pour in a tablespoon of oil then lay in the breasts skin side down.  Leave for a good 7 minutes for the skin to crisp.  Turn over, season, and place in the oven for 7 minutes.  Remove to a board to rest for a further 4 minutes (timings all approximate).  Cut each fillet into slices on the board.  Doing this skin side down is easier.

Spoon all but around 1tbsp of fat from the tray.  Add a splash of water, some salt and pepper and another squeeze of lemon juice then after plating up everything else simmer hard over a hob to reduce to a small amount of sauce.

For the mushrooms:

1 tbsp. olive oil
10g butter
1 clove garlic
2 tbsp. finely chopped flat leaf parsley
Squeeze of lemon
Oyster mushrooms (or wild mushrooms of any kind)
Salt and pepper

Melt the butter in the olive oil in a frying pan.  Wash and dry the mushrooms.  Place in the pan and sauté over a medium heat with a pinch of salt until their liquid is reabsorbed and they are just tender but not firm.

To make the persillade, wash and shake dry the parsley and pick the leaves off the stem.  Chop finely.  Cut the stem end off the garlic clove.  Crush lightly for a first time so the skin can be removed.  Half the clove lengthways and remove any green sprout inside - there may be none.  Then crush again fully, which will make it easier to chop.  Finally chop both parsley and garlic together.

Again, when everything is ready toss the mushrooms in the persillade over the heat for less than a minute, add a squeeze of lemon juice and some black pepper, and serve.

Potato puree:

Think I've given this before but here it is again!

Wash, peel and dice potatoes into 2cm cubes.  Boil thoroughly in salted water for 15 minutes.  Drain, return to the heat to drive away moisture, then mash when dry like this.

In a small pan place some full fat milk, butter, a skin-on fully crushed garlic clove and seasoning to taste including heavy amounts of (preferably) white pepper.  Warm this through to melt the butter and infuse with the garlic flavour.

Having removed the garlic from the liquid, add the liquid to the mash in stages until the right consistency is reached, mashing further after each stage and finally beating with a wooden spoon for 2 minutes.  Taste for salt as this will make a big difference.