Chicken breasts are a great stand-by for dinners during the week; both my fiancé and I like them, they are quick to cook, pretty healthy and you can do a lot of different things with them. I found this recipe for spiced baked chicken parcels – chicken en papilotte – on Serious Eats, and decided to make my own variation on it.
I already had za’atar, a Middle Eastern spice, I’d bought when we had the letter Z for Alphabakes, but I don’t like to eat peppers or tomatoes so instead decided to use a little bit of pepper and a portion of spiralized butternut squash. A squash is really easy to spiralize if you have a robust enough machine (mine is the Lurch one from Lakeland that you can buy on Amazon here:
I tossed the chicken breast, which I had butterflied out, with the spices, oil and herbs and then placed it on a square of foil with the peppers, onion, spring onion and butternut squash on top. I wrapped up the parcel and baked it in the oven; it only took 20 minutes as I had sliced the chicken relatively thin. When you unwrap the parcel you have a very tasty meal, which can be served with extra veg or perhaps with new or mashed potatoes for a more substantial dinner.
