Karen Wright: A tasty balmoral chicken recipe to mark Queen passing

The recipe was easy to follow and the chicken was delicious!

“Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. Of all the things that have been said about the Queens passing, this phrase touched me the most. Said by our new King, Charles, when he addressed the nation for the first time.

I found it an interesting phrase and not one that I had heard before.

Apparently, it was originally spoken by Horatio in Shakespeare’s Hamlet when Hamlet had just died.

Quite fascinating!

It has been an extraordinary week and I have been watching most of the coverage on the television.

This fit quite well with my situation as I tested positive for Covid 19 for the first time since the pandemic began the day the Queen died.

I am so thankful that I have taken advantage of the vaccination programme as I have been quite unwell and dread to think how much more awful things might have been had I not been “jabbed”.

As a recipe idea this week I bring you ‘Balmoral Chicken’ As the Queen died at Balmoral, I thought it was just the thing.

Totally scrumptious too. If you can’t get haggis at this time, a peppery sausage meat will suffice.

When I was preparing for the jubilee celebrations earlier this year, I discovered this dish for the first time.

It is a chicken dish, stuffed with haggis and served with a whisky cream sauce.

Butterfly a chicken breast by carefully slicing it through the horizontal to make two thin escalopes.

Place them into a sandwich bag and bash them with a rolling pin to flatten. Spread a little haggis on the breast and a teaspoon full of marmalade.

Neaten the edges by trimming and then roll up. Wrap in streaky bacon and secure with cocktail sticks.

Pan fry in a little butter to brown the sides and then cook in the oven for twenty minutes while you prepare the sauce.

Melt some butter in a frying pan and sizzle down a few finely diced shallots. Add 250ml chicken stock, a teaspoon of Dijon mustard and reduce.

Splash in some whisky and then add 150ml double cream.

Return the chicken to the sauce and cook for another ten minutes.

Remove the cocktail sticks. I like to serve this with potatoes and vegetables.