Recipe - Lemon and Oregano chicken with simple Tabbouleh

Although we've had a few chilly nights recently, here in Hampshire we've also has a lot of sunny, summery days and our thoughts are turning towards more summery meals.

So here's a very simple  meal with a Mediterranean feel about it. Marinating the chicken means you can cook it in a griddle pan (or on a barbecue, but be careful, it does fall apart and you might lose some into the flames!) without it drying out and it becomes falling-apart tender.

I've made 2 servings of everything but it's very easy to multiply or divide as needed.  You'll need to start preparing things a couple of hours in advance.

For the chicken:

2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1 lemon, grated rind and juice
2 tablespoons light olive oil
1 teaspoon dried oregano

You'll also need a large shallow non metallic dish, with a lid or cling film/beeswax wrap/ hotel shower cap cover.

Beat the chicken as thinly as you can - I find the best way is to put each piece into a large plastic bag and hammer it with a meat mallet or heavy rolling pin.

Mix together all the other ingredients and pour into the shallow dish. Add the chicken and turn several times to coat with the marinade. Cover and chill for at least an hour.

Heat a griddle pan (you could use a lightly oiled frying pan, or cook them under the grill) until very hot and then place the chicken pieces in the pan. Don't try to stir them or move them around - the sign that they are cooked on one side is that they will lift from the pan fairly easily. If they stick, they aren't ready.  This will take 2-3 minutes. Turn them and do the same on the other side. Test to see if the chicken is cooked through - just cut into one of the thicker areas and make sure there is no pink remaining. The cooking time will depend on how thinly you have beaten them but if the searing time it has already had isn't enough, turn down the heat on the pan ad cook them gently, turning once or twice more, until cooked through.

The chicken WILL fall apart, because the marinade has tenderised it so much,  but that all adds to the rustic charm of the dish and also helps if you want to be really rustic and scoop it up with flatbreads!

I serve it with flatbreads simply made with self raising flour, salt, natural yoghurt and water - I learned the recipe on a visit to the Waitrose Cookery School a few years ago. I also made a yoghurt dressing by grating up some cucumber, salting it and leaving it to drain in a sieve for an hour, rinsing it and squeezing out the water and mixing it into natural yoghurt.

Finally the tabbouleh - a quick, easy version that makes no pretence to be  at all authentic! For two people, I  put around 70g of bulghur (cracked wheat) into a bowl with half a teaspoon of salt,   cover it well with hot water and leave it to stand for 15 minutes. Then I tip everything into a sieve and press out as much of the water as possible. Return the wheat to the bowl and stir in the juice of half a lemon and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. (I use a good oil for this, not the light version I use for cooking, but if you don't like the stronger taste, the light version is fine)  and set aside to cool. 

Meanwhile chop parsley and mint - as much as you like. A real tabbouleh is basically a herb salad speckled with flecks of wheat,  but I tend to use a much smaller proportion of herbs or we'd run out of them in the garden! When the wheat is completely cold, stir in the herbs immediately before serving. There are lots of variations of this - you could include spring onions, coriander leaves, even cucumber and tomatoes. I've even seen it flecked with pomegranate seeds although not yet tried that myself.