Stuffed lemon and herb chicken breast – Mother’s Day meal

Instructions

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1 Preheat the oven to 180°C.

2 First make the stuffing by crumbling or processing the bread into fresh crumbs. Add the chopped onion, salt, pepper and sage. If you are using a processor, just put everything in together and give it a whiz up.

3 Use a fine grater to grate the coloured part of the skin from one of the lemons – this is the zest. Try to avoid grating the thick white pith underneath the zest, as that part is bitter.

4 Add the lemon zest to the stuffing mixture and lastly, mix the egg in well.

5 Prepare the chicken by carefully placing it skin side down in a large plastic bag; arrange it so the meaty side is as flat and even as possible.

6 Cover the meat with the plastic and use a rolling pin to beat the meat so it becomes an even thickness.

7 Concentrate on beating the thickest parts, run your hand over the bag to feel and check it has become even. It doesn’t need to be thin, just even!

8 When the chicken is flat, carefully lift it out of the bag and lie it skin side down on a board. Squeeze the stuffing into a sausage shape and pat in place along one side of the slab of chicken. Then roll the chicken around the stuffing.

9 When it’s a neat bundle with the join underneath, take a piece of string and slide it under the bundle. Tie it up with a double knot, tight enough to hold the roll together but not so tight the meat bulges out either side of the string.

1 0 Do the same with the other 3 pieces of string, spacing them out so the whole thing is an even shape. If some of the stuffing creeps out of the ends, just poke it back in with your finger.

1 1 Put the chicken into an ovenproof dish. Take the lemon that you grated, cut it in half and squeeze the juice all over the chicken.

1 2 Cut the other lemon in half. Slice one half into 4 slices and slip each slice under one of the pieces of string, and squeeze the other half over the chicken.

1 3 Put the chicken in the preheated oven and bake for 1 hour or until the juices run clear (test this by poking a skewer into the fattest part of the roll).

1 4 Slice and serve hot with vegetables or a salad, or cold in sandwiches.