The Food Site

Once in a while, I’d get this craving for pita bread, wholemeal pita bread, that is. And no, I am not pregnant but thank you for your concern.

I’m just being my usual food-loving self. So, when I want pita bread, then it is what we have for dinner. Other than being healthy and wholesome and all, it is pretty easy to prepare with minimal cooking. Really, I’m not lying.

Okay, so I cheated by buying the pita bread but heck, it is readily available and the healthy, wholemeal, no-preservative types can also be bought so might as well buy them than spend goodness-knows-how-many-hours kneading and whatever making them, right? Right. I did say minimal cooking.

Now, let’s get on to the minimal cooking part…the meat fillings for the pita bread

Chicken breast recipes: Healthy baked chicken breast with mushrooms

Ingredients

For the baked chicken breast:

200g chicken breast meat strips

4 tbsp teriyaki sauce

1 tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped into tiny smithereens (or roughly chopped, whatever)

a dash of black pepper (or 1 tbsp if you really like black pepper)

olive oil (I use cold pressed, extra virgin olive oil for maximum health benefit but you can use any old un-virgin olive oil or any vegetable oil you like, for that matter.)

For the sauce:

4 medium-sized fresh shiitake mushrooms, cubed

4 button mushrooms, cubed

1/2 cup frozen mix vegetables, defrosted

3 tbsp oyster sauce

3 tbsp water

olive oil

For the fresh ingredients that don’t need to be cooked:

5 cherry tomatoes and some sliced tomatoes

1 cup cabbage, sliced thinly

Plenty of salad greens like baby butterhead

Oh, you can totally leave out the cabbage and replace it with thinly sliced carrots. I just happen to get a big huge head of cabbage so I had to use it. In fact, I came up with some other recipes because of the head of cabbage I needed to finish! But that’s some future posts, so let’s continue on with this one.

Here’s a pictorial idea of what you’ll need…

Don’t forget the most important ingredient…the pita bread!

Chicken recipes: Baked chicken breast recipe with mushrooms

Instructions

1. Season the chicken strips with the teriyaki sauce.

2. Add in the black pepper and herbs.

3. Use your fingers or spoon to mix it all around till it is all evenly covered in the sauce, pepper and rosemary (or whichever herb you took a fancy to, it doesn’t really matter).

4. Place the seasoned chicken breast meat on a tray covered with foil and then drizzle some of the thawed frozed vegetables and chopped mushrooms on top like so…

5. Don’t forget the extra virgin olive oil. Drizzle some on top of the chicken and then pop the tray into the oven and bake at 200C for 10 minutes. Then turn over and bake for another 10 minutes. Do check in between to make sure it is not being baked to a dried out old hump. These baking time are not as accurate due to different sized ovens, different wattages, different climate, different countries, different worlds, different chicken, I dunno. Just check the chicken.

Anyway, once done, they should look like this:

See? Juicy, succulent, cooked and NOT like dried out old hunks of stringy meat at all.

Now, on to the sauce for this beautiful, beautiful meat for the best, pita bread meal ever.

What sauce?

What do you mean what sauce? I don’t know about you but I don’t eat my pita bread with meat and veg without any sauce. That’s just too darn weird. And no, I don’t mean ketchup. Puh-lez!

Now, remember those chopped mushrooms and frozen vegetables?

6. Heat up some extra virgin olive oil in a wok or pan and then sautee the mushrooms and mixed vegetables like so:

7. Add in the water and the sauce and then stir-fry for a while till fragrant. Add a pinch of flour if you want a thicker sauce.

There you have it, simple and easy sauce to go with the chicken and pita bread and plenty of fresh vegs. YUM.The best part is that you can serve up the baked chicken breast covered in this sauce as a main dish itself, other than for use with pita. Look…

But me, I pour some sauce over the chicken and then the rest in a bowl and serve it all up like this:

Yep, everyone get to stuff their own pita with whatever is on the table and dribble as much sauce (or as little) as they want. Simple, easy and importantly HEALTHY!

Now, we’re talking. Whoever said healthy food is tasteless have not tried MY version of healthy food. Baked chicken breast, plenty of vegetables and wholemeal pita bread. What could be better eh?

Go on, try this out and if you don’t have any of the sauces or even pita bread or want to try out extra virgin olive oil, you can shop for them online here:

This is one of my baked chicken breast recipes that is probably one of the easiest to prepare because it involves only three easy steps. Now, in my previous post on Chicken Recipes: Chicken Curry Kapitan, I mentioned that I used some of the curry paste from that dish to make this dish. So, do refer to that post for the curry recipe. Otherwise, you can always use any type of curry paste you have on hand, either a home made one or pre-packaged ones or even bottled ones. It doesn’t really matter.

To get the curried baked chicken breast, I rubbed some chili powder onto the chicken breast meat first before I add the curry paste. So, for sure, this dish is as hot and spicy as I wanted it to be! So, you see, baked chicken need not be bland or plain. It can be crunchy and now it can be spicy with curry flavours!

I am sure, by now, you must be wondering why I have so many baked chicken breast recipes in recent times. Well, lets just say I needed to revamp the way we eat and add in more healthy, wholesome and non-oily food. Baked chicken breast is probably one of the healthiest dishes I could think of as it has minimal oil and thus, less calories compared to frying. Also, it is easy to prepare. Just season, pop into the oven and it is ready to eat!

Now, lets get on with it….

Chicken recipes: Curried Baked Chicken Breast Recipe

Ingredients

150g chicken breast meat, cut into strips

2 tbsp chili powder

1 tbsp sea salt

4 tbsp curry paste

1 tbsp olive oil

Instructions

1. Clean the chicken, drain and pat dry. Cut into long, thin strips so that it cooks easily. Season the chicken with the salt and chili powder.

2. Rub the curry paste all over the chicken.

3. Place the chicken strips onto a tray covered by foil. Drizzle it with some olive oil and bake in the oven at 200 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes. Then turn over and bake for another 10 minutes. It’s done when it looks like this:

To really test if it is done, just pick a larger piece and nudge the centre with a fork. If it is all white inside with clear juices, it is done. If there’s still a hint of pink, then pop it back into the oven and bake for a few more minutes. Just be careful you don’t over-cook it or else you’d get some really tough and hard chicken breast meat!

I’d say it goes great with some brown unpolished rice and green veg. However, how you like to eat it is entirely up to you as it can also be made into chicken salad or as a main dish with potatoes and salad as sides.