Nigella's chicken schnitzel (slightly tampered with)

We love this recipe either a'la Nigella, 

or in my slightly tweaked version

I make this for the two of us but Nigella's recipe in her Nigella Express book, from which this is adapted, is for 4 servings.

Today just over half a kilo of my sweet dry cured streaky bacon had finished and was dried.  I like to use it in my cooking as much as for breakfasts and this is one of my favourite bacony recipes.

I used:

1. 2 chicken breast fillets (taken from a jointed whole chicken, much cheaper than buying ready packaged, wear rubber gloves if you're squeamish)
2. 4 rashers of the FW sweet dry cured streaky (or your choice of streaky bacon)
3. Half a glass of wine
4. About half a cup of double/single cream, creme fraiche, yogurt (be as virtuous as you please)

Preheat your oven to 160C

Equipment:  a large heavy frying pan or griddle pan

To continue reading and see the video please click on 'read more' below.


First, dry fry your bacon slowly so that the fat renders out and they turn crispy and browned.  Gratuitous clip of my home cured bacon frying below, sorry, couldn't resist a tease!

Whilst that's doing you need to make escallops with the chicken breasts, or rather, beat them to thin them out, I use a rolling pin, you need a barrier between the raw chicken and the rolling pin.  Most cooks will suggest they're packaged between two sheets of cling wrap, I use carrier bags because I'm tight with the cling wrap.  They should be beaten out to about the depth of a £1.00 coin as evenly as possible but don't be pedantic about it, it's a rough guide.  

Take your bacon out of the pan and reserve on kitchen paper whilst you fry the chicken, it won't take long as they will be so flat, you may have to do these individually depending of the size of your frying pan.  Check they are cooked inside and then put your chicken into an oven warmed to 160C.  

Next, crumble the bacon back into the pan and scrape up any sticky bits, slosh in the half glass of wine and turn the heat up, once the wine has made a reduction pour in your cream, or your chosen substitute and let it warm through stirring until it reaches the ribbon stage (this is where you can draw a spoon through the sauce and see a parting showing the bottom of the pan for a few seconds).  If, like me, you used a griddle pan you may want to pour the sauce into a saucepan for this final stage.

Now plate your chicken escallops and pour over the creamy sauce.  I serve this with either a jacket potato and garlicy green beans or rice with peas and sweetcorn.  

The addition of sliced mushrooms after the bacon has cooked makes a slightly different version of this sauce.