This week’s theme:   It’s in the Bag: Cooking in Parchment from Kayte.  Evidently Donna doesn’t cook a lot of food in bags at least not in the books I have.  But I did find a couple of ideas on The Splendid Table that looked really good.  Like this one.

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Spiced Chicken

And it was incredibly easy.  Just place some shredded sweet potato on a piece of parchment (making sure it is big enough to fold over all of the food involved) and then on top of that you place a chicken breast.  I didn’t want a big piece of chicken so I cut some strips instead of using a whole breast.  Then you simply sprinkle with a little za’atar, which I was lucky enough to have some in the spice drawer from another recipe.  It’s really not a spice everyone would have in their pantry.  Drizzle the chicken etc with some olive oil and wrap the parchment around it all forming a small bag.  Bake the package for 12 – 15 minutes at 400°F.  Donna suggests serving it with some yogurt and mint leaves.

Okay.  This was good.  Not great, but good.  I only used 1/2 of a large sweet potato.  I should have used the whole potato.  The za’atar is a Middle Eastern mix  of sumac, thyme, whole sesame seeds and salt.  I really liked the flavor it added to the chicken.

The only thing I didn’t like about the dish was all the chicken ‘juice’ and oil that accumulated at the bottom of the package.  I think I will use less olive oil next time, too.

All that being said I will definitely fix this again.  It was tasty.

See more Parchment cooking over at Wednesdays with Donna Hay.

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