Little Foodies Russia, Cabin Fever & Chicken Kiev

It's official the world and it's weather is going bonkers and our household is well and truly suffering from Cabin Fever. It's not the best half term holiday. We are lurching from one mood to another without rhyme or reason. Poor H returns from work every day wondering what emotional garbage he's going to walk in to. If this weather doesn't break we're putting on wet weather gear and going for a hike across the fields. I need some fresh air. It's the end of May and we've had the heating on every day this week.... Moan, moan, moan. Do stop by for a moan....

That was this morning and at about 2pm the sun came out. It's been a brilliant afternoon, we even ventured to the park. We're still 'in' Russia and I made up this Chicken Kiev recipe based on various ones that I've seen over the years. Not sure it's authentic but it was tasty.

Chicken Kiev (Garlic butter stuffed chicken) Serves 4
4 chicken breasts with skin and part of the wing bone left on.
1 large handful of parsley (we used the curly variety)
Half a pack of butter, cold from fridge, chopped into pieces
8 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
Sprinkle of salt. if unsalted using butter
Half a pack of crackers (we didn't have any bread to make real breadcrumbs)

In a food processor add the crackers and blitz until they resemble fine breadcrumbs. Do this first and you can then make the garlic butter in the same pot without having to wash it out first. If you do it the other way round you'll need to wash it first.

Then make the garlic butter by adding the butter, crushed garlic and parsley (and salt if using unsalted butter) to the processor and blitz until the herbs are finely chopped and it's all come together into a smooth butter. Put this in the fridge while you prepare the chicken.

First take off the loose bit of chicken (can't remember what it's called but it's the perfect size and shape for goujons, which is what we did with them).
Insert a hole into the chicken breasts from the thin end, where the bone is still attached... This is difficult to explain, if you don't understand what I mean then much better to ask your butcher to do it for you.
Push the garlic butter into the hole, the butter starts sticking to your hands, you just have to keep at it. Next time I think I'd freeze the butter first.
When you've pushed plenty in you need to fold the chicken over... and secure it by wrapping string around it. I couldn't find any string so used a few cocktail sticks and hoped for the best.
I then poured the crackercrumbs into a large bowl and then rolled the chicken around in it until they were liberally coated.
With the smaller pieces of chicken I rubbed them all over with the garlic butter then rolled in the crackercrumbs. Placed them all in an ovenproof dish then pop in the oven for 50 minutes on 180C (will put other conversions on asap).

I actually used a whole pack of butter so there was far too much. I used it all up by boiling some potatoes and throwing the rest of the garlic butter over it then roasting in a really hot oven for 30 minutes. Delicious but the sort of fodder that could possibly bring on cardiac arrest.

Edit. Asha left a comment re: M&S kievs she used to get in the UK. My mum used to get those and I loved them. If I'm honest I think I'd buy my kievs ready made. If I was going homemade I'd just make chicken goujons using the crackercrumbs and serve with melted garlic and parsley butter on the side... Much easier and quicker to prepare.