Pinwheel Chicken

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If you have picky eaters in the house, this chicken pastry made to look like a Swiss roll may well help, especially as the vegetables are included in the stuffing.

I've adapted my basic recipe to make this family friendly by using at least some ready-prepared ingredients, including the puff pastry. You could, if you wished to, work from scratch.

You need:

• 2 sheets of ready-rolled puff pastry
• 500g minced chicken breast, uncooked
• 3 finely chopped shallots or scallions
• 2 crushed cloves of garlic
• 1/3 cup of chopped dried apricots
• 1/4 cup of toasted pine nuts
• 1 packet of frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
• 100g grated cheese
• 1 coarsely grated carrot
• salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 220C, 425F

The first thing to do is to join the pastry sheets together. Do this by laying them end to end on a sheet of baking parchment, then brush one edge of the pastry with water, overlap them by about 5cm (1 inch) and press the edges together. You now have one oblong sheet of pastry.

On this spread the first five ingredients, mixed together, followed by the cheese, then the carrot and finally the spinach. Season well and be sure to leave a border on one short edge of about 5cm (1 inch).

Now, using the paper to help you, roll up the pastry and filling from the short edge where you left a border until you have a Swiss roll shape. Then cut this roll into 3cm (half an inch plus) slices and place them cut side down on an oiled baking tray.

These will take about 25 minutes to cook and make an excellent light lunch.

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