Recipe time

S is still craving "pain au poulet" so I decided to make an effort. The problem being, I've never made bread before in my life. Searching the internet yielded no recipe results for chicken bread so I decided to do my normal thing and just try it. I went and bought some basic groceries.

Any regular reader will know I don't usually know/follow quantities but in this instance I wanted to know how to correct my future efforts so I made mental notes. The good news is that it actually worked first time - to the extent S wanted to know where I bought it. If you want to try a taste of France, give this a go:

You'll need:
Dried yeast powder
Flour
Sugar
Salt
Butter
Milk
Eggs
Chicken
Dijon mustard
cheese

Notes on ingrediants:
My yeast is in the form of 7g sachets of dry bakers yeast
I used both plain and self raising flour - explained later
French bread tends to be sweet so I used sugar to sweeten it up
I used chicken breast fillets, cut in half lengthwise to thin them down a little
I used mozzerella cheese cos it's good melty cheese but use your favourite

How:
Seive 2 cups of plain flour into large bowl. Add 1 sachet of yeast. Add about 1/4 cup of sugar. Add a pinch of salt. Mix up well.

Melt (don't cook!) about 3 tbsp of butter (I just microwaved it on 10% power).
Warm about 1/4 cup of milk in microwave too
Lightly beat two eggs (But use about 2/3rds, if you use it all it'll be a bit too wet)

Add wet ingrediants to dry and mix. You will notice it's too wet to kneed. Add self raising flour until it reaches a doughy texture. Kneed for ten mins tops. The purpose of kneeding is to add air so I just try to flatten it out, fold it in half, flatten, repeat, etc.

Place in a bowl, cover and put in a warm place for about 45 mins. It should double in volume during this time. I put mine in the laundry, that's warm enough.

While this was happening I boiled the chicken fillets for about 10 mins so that I knew they were already cooked through.

Split dough into 4 equal pieces. Flatten each with your hands. Spread with Dijon mustard. Lay a chicken fillet in the centre. Add sliced cheese on top of the top of the chicken. Fold the outsides of the dough upwards to cover the chicken completely. Squeeze it into a loaf shape and place on a baking tray. 3 or 4 "loaves" should easily fill your tray.

Place in a warm place for half an hour. Brush with remainder of beaten egg and place in pre-heated oven (180) for about half an hour.

Let me know how you go with it. Next time I make some I'll take photos.

NB: I've since tried this with pre-cooked burgers. I added some sliced onion, extra cheese and they were a huge hit with my neighbour...