Quick Pan Fried Chicken Breast & Greens

I've been catching up on a lot of Jamie Oliver's 15 Minute Meals over the last few days.  Pan fried chicken breast seems to feature quite heavily.  I don't think my kids could do justice to the whole meal as planned by him, so I thought I'd soften the blow of something arguably new by serving it with pasta and their respective favourite vegetables; Sprout - broccoli, and Big Boy - peas.  I gave Princess the choice of either and to my surprise she chose broccoli.

A la Jamie I had wanted to achieve a nice crisp spiced crust on the chicken.  I tried flattening it out with his greaseproof paper and rolling pin GBH approach but was a little to wary so the cooking tooking longer than his 15 minutes, but not much. I also think my frying pan is too old and has lost a lot of it's non-stick coating so I ended up braising the chicken in a little white wine towards the end of the chicken to stop it sticking, but also to keep the chicken moist and give the kids a little gravy.

This is the Jamie Oliver recipe that this is loosely based on Golden Chicken & Braised Greens.  I had intended to try the quick Potato Gratin, but apparently Big Boy remembered I had said pasta that morning during his hearing test (and despite the fact it turns out he has mild hearing loss in each ear due to glue ear).  And as the cream I intended to use had been opened, unknown to me, and turned to cheese this proved to be a wise call.  The kids veg was steamed on top of the pasta.

As for me trying to eat a lower calorie diet, I calculate that one medium sized chicken breast, loads of cabbage, and a small serving of pasta (about 30g dried pasta) with a glass of red wine comes to about 500cals.  Tomorrow is fast day!

Pan Fried Chicken & Cabbage
4 chicken breasts
Large pinch of dried thyme, sage or rosemary
Large pinch of sweet paprika
Salt & pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
Savoy cabbage, cut into eight wedges
Half a glass white wine
1 tbsp cream optional

Heat a non stick frying pan with a lid on a medium heat.

Lay the chicken breasts on a piece of greaseproof paper large enough to fold back over them.  Season both sides with the herbs, paprika, salt & pepper.  Fold the paper over the top of the chicken and then tap/flatten with the side of a rolling pin to about 1 cm if possible.

Add the olive oil to the hot pan and then lay in the flattened chicken breasts, leaving them for about 5 minutes or until they start to brown.  Turn over and leave to brown for a few minutes then slosh in the wine, tuck the cabbage, around the chicken, put on the lid and leave to simmer for 10 minutes.  Check from time to time that the pan is not drying out.  If it does add about half a glass of boiled water.

After 10 minutes check the largest breast is cooked through.  If it is, remove the chicken to a plate and stir in the cream if using.