We're going to make the most delicious,
simple chicken dish that you're gonna
love. Chicken al mattone, chicken under
the brick. It's a brilliant technique
that we've done at Jamie's Italian for ten
years now, and the chicken's delicious.
We're gonna make a homemade pesto and
this is like no pesto you've ever seen
before, right. It's really really
delicious. We like to set ourself apart,
we've always invested in higher welfare,
beautiful free-range chicken. This is
from the Coleman family in Devon and
they do a brilliant brilliant free-range
chicken, Creedy Carver it's called, and we
use the legs and the breasts. For this
dish we're using the breast and we
marinate that, pass me that Chef, we
marinate the chicken breast in rosemary,
garlic, oil, a little lemon zest, and bay
leaf. We do that the day before. That'll
make it more tender and then we're going
to whack this onto the grill. So in Jamie's
Italian we invented our own al mattone
here. So that's heavy and it's screaming
hot. It makes it juicy and it makes the
skin go beautifully crisp. While that's
cooking let me show you a beautiful
pesto. Now it's not the same pesto that
you might think you get from the
supermarket, right. It's not basil and
pine nuts and parmesan no no no no no.
So the word pesto means paste and actually
if you go across Italy they have
hundreds, hundreds and hundreds, of
different pesto's and what I love is to
be a bit more seasonal about herbs. So
we've got basil here, we've got mint here
and we've got parsley and all of this is
going to go into a food processor.
I'm gonna go in with almonds, so we're not
using pine nuts, love almonds and I'm not
toasting them off because I want the
creaminess. Then we're gonna go in with
some parmesan, a little bit of garlic,
olive oil, a little lemon zest, really
lightens it, and then just whiz it up.
Just literally takes seconds and you know
the traditional recipe would use a
pestle and mortar which is lovely, you
can bruise the flavour out, but actually I
quite like making it in a food processor.
You know it does cut the herbs but it
kind of keeps it fresher I think, and
then what we want to do is loosen it
with good oil. You know you can blend
nuts you can blend cheeses, pecorino's
parmesan, and actually in our pesto we've
got a really special extra cheese which
is salted ricotta, so just like the
ricotta or the re-cooked cheese, the light
cheese, the white cheese, they have
another one which they salt and it's
delicious and it's fresh and I love
blending the parmesan with the salted
ricotta. It's so beautiful and so
delicious. Look at that! And then let's
have a little taste. How are we doing
with that chicken chef? I'm just thinking
now about balancing, I want to get that
parmesan right. The garlic's good, the
herbs are really fresh and sometimes I
like to put a little lemon juice with it.
Look at that, really beautiful.
So look! Look at that, super crispy. So
finish it with a little lemon juice,
little olive oil, and we'll serve it up. I
like to put the pesto on the base so
when you cut into your chicken you have
to get that pesto over it.
We're gonna get our chicken and I'm just
gonna slice it, just once. What's really
beautiful is two things, you can double
check that it's cooked to perfection, but
also you expose that crispiness and
that juicy, juicy breast inside and then
to finish it off, just a little lemon
juice, a little oil and just a little bit
of rocket, little wedge of lemon. So there
you go guys
chicken al mattone, loads of love there.
Super simple food but that Creedy Carver
free-range chicken, the crispy skin,
that juicy breast, that homemade seasonal
pesto, with the almond, salted ricotta. So
good. So so good. Simple food, but made
with love. Come in and see us at
Jamie's Italian.
