5 Spice Chicken

  I used to make this all the time then for some reason I forgot how good it was and moved on to other things. Then a few days a go I was wondering what on earth I should eat for dinner when I remembered how tasty five spice chicken is and I had most of the ingredients at home, I posted a pic on Instagram and it got some lovely comments so I thought I'd share the pretty simple recipe with you. I serve the tasty chicken with a veggie stir fry and some basmati rice. Ooh and a bonus for any of you trying to be healthy, this comes in under 500 calories! If you don't know 5 spice is a Chinese spice blend of star anise, cloves, cinnamon, sichuan pepper and fennel seeds and you can get it in your local super market.

Ingredients - Makes enough for two

2 good sized skinless chicken breasts
1 & 1/2 teaspoons of 5 spice powder
1 tbsp sesame oil, split in half
100g white basmati rice (brown if you're being super healthy!)
200g mushrooms
200g mange tout or sugar snap peas
4 Spring onions
2 tsps sesame seeds
2 tsps Light soy sauce
Chilli flakes
Sea Salt

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 225 degrees. Marinade your chicken breast in the five spice powder, half the sesame oil and season with few chilli flakes and a little salt, if you have the time you could leave this to marinade for a couple of hours. Once the oven is heated pop the chicken in on the top shelf and it should take about 30 minutes. I didn't take a photo of the chicken because it wasn't very pretty!

2. Whilst the chicken is cooking prepare your rice and veg, I always rinse my rice in cold water a couple of time to get rid of any starch. Thinly slice your spring onions, cut the mange tout/sugar snap peas in half diagonally, and slice your mushrooms. Next you need to toast your sesame seeds, you can do this in the wok or pan you are going to use, just heat the pan on a medium high heat and add the seeds and toast till they have a little colour, you don't need to add any oil for this.

3. Once everything is prepared and you have around 15 minutes until your chicken is going to be done, get the rice on, we all have our special way of cooking rice, I just rinse, add boiling water and let it bubble away for around 12 minutes checking occasionally.

4. Heat the remaining sesame oil in a wok or pan and add the veggies when the pan is smoking hot, stir fry them for a good 8 minutes, then add the soy sauce, some chilli flakes and the sesame seeds and stir fry for a further 2 minutes.

5. Once the chicken is cooked all the way through, remove from the oven, and slice horizontally. Dish up the rice and stir fried veggies so they take up half of the bowl each and place the sliced chicken on top.

Let me know if you make this dish!