Chicken and Chive Butter on Toast with Simple Summer Salad

Chicken and chive butter on hot toast can be served with any salad of choice

This simple yet delicious lunch idea came about when I decided to take the herb butter I frequently make at home one step further. I had been making duck confit one night (a way of cooking and preserving the meat) when the adaptation occured to me and I decided that the next time I had some leftover chicken, I would give this idea a go.

Note that it is necessary to prepare the butter the night before to give it time to set overnight in the fridge.

Ingredients (Serves Two)

3oz leftover cooked chicken (approximately)
1 tsp freshly chopped chives
3oz butter (approximately)
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 diagonal slices from bread stick
2 handfuls peashoots
1 medium tomato
3" piece cucumber

Leftover chicken is mixed with chopped chives and seasoning

Directions

Carefully shred the chicken with your hands in to fairly small pieces. Mix it with the chopped chives and season with salt and pepper. (Omit the salt if you are using salted butter.) Arrange the combination in a small ramekin that the dish is around two-thirds full. Do not pack it down too tightly, as the melted butter needs to penetrate through the chicken and set it in place.

Chicken and chives should two-thirds fill a ramekin

Gently melt the butter in a small saucepan. When it is almost but not fully melted, remove the pan from the heat and simply swirl it to complete the process. This prevents the butter from overheating and perhaps starting to split. Pour the butter in to the ramekin to fill it level with the top. Cover and leave to cool and partially set. After a couple of hours, the butter should be partly solidified. Wrap the ramekin in clingfilm and place it in the fridge overnight.

Melted butter is carefully poured in to the ramekin to fill level with the top

Need a Ramekin Set? Check what Amazon and Amazon UK have to Offer!



On the following day, try to remove the ramekin from the fridge a couple of hours before you intend eating lunch to let the butter become spreadable. If this is not practical (or you forget!) all you have to do is half fill a cup with boiling water, sit your knife in it for a few seconds, quickly dry the knife with kitchen paper and employ the hot knife through butter technique. It works very well.

Dipping your knife in to boiling water makes the butter easier to spread

Cut your bread and get it on to toast while you assemble your salad. The peashoots in this instance were laid on the plates and the segmented tomato and cucumber laid on top. Season with salt and pepper.

Spreading the chicken and chive butter on the hot toast

Spread the butter evenly over the hot toast and plate beside the salad. I like a little bit extra black pepper before service but this is of course entirely optional.

Toast is spread with the butter and ready to be plated and served

Quick and Easy Guacamole and Tomato on Farmhouse Toast

Homemade guacamole is spread on toast and topped with sliced tomato and chopped herbs

Lunch is a meal that we often have considerably less time to prepare than dinner. When we can find a recipe idea, therefore, that takes no more than ten minutes to prepare from start to finish, yet is both nutritious and delicious, it is surely worth giving it a try. This incredibly simple idea meets all of these requirements and these quantities will provide two people with a light but tasty lunch.

Ingredients

1 hass avocado
1 medium tomato
Juice of half a lemon
1 clove of garlic
1 tsp dried chilli flakes
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 thick slices of farmhouse (or similar) bread
Chopped coriander leaf/cilantro to garnish

The stone actually fell out of this perfectly ripened hass avocado

Directions

Guacamole in a literal sense means simply, "Avocado sauce." That is why the recipes for it can be and are so varied. If you have a particular guacamole recipe that you wish to substitute for this one, by all means do so. The overall dish will work just as well.

The first step is to peel and stone the avocado. If you are very lucky (as I was in this instance) and your avocado is at that perfect state of ripeness, the stone will simply fall out when you make the required cut around the circumference. Use a teaspoon to scoop out the flesh from both halves and add it to a small glass or stone bowl.

Avocado flesh is scooped in to a bowl for mashing

Add the lemon juice to the avocado only before you mash it to a smooth consistency with a fork. Afterwards, add the chilli flakes, the peeled and grated garlic cloves and seasoning of salt and pepper. Stir well and set aside.

Mashed avocado is seasoned

Cut the bread slices nice and thick, round about an inch. You can use any kind of bread but this farmhouse loaf works extremely well.

Slicing the bread thickly for toast

Toast the slices of bread until golden on both sides. There is no need to butter them as the guacamole will add all the moisture you need.

Bread is toasted until golden on both sides

Divide the guacamole between the two slices of toast and spread it out evenly with a knife.

Guacamole is spread thickly on the hot toast

Slice the tomato fairly thinly and lay on top of the guacamole. Season with a little more salt and pepper. Very roughly chop the coriander/cilantro and scatter as a final garnish before immediate service.

Tomato slices are laid on the guacamole