Bacon wrapped Chicken Maryland

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The Pialligo Estate Bacon’s Smokehouse burns down

It was a tragedy of epic proportions for residents of Canberra who love bacon. While it was not the complete loss of bacon altogether, it was the loss of some of the nicest bacon available locally in Canberra. Just in case you’re interested, the butcher at the Spence shops also makes lovely thick cut rashers of bacon. I’ve also enjoyed some home cured bacon from a former boss’s husband. Then of course you can always buy bacon from a supermarket where water is injected so that when you cook it, it turns into a soggy mess.

Back to the story, the Pialligo Estate’s Hume smokehouse was gutted by fire in Canberra’s south on the evening of Wednesday 20 July 2016. The good news is that no one was hurt and full production is expected to resume in the first week of August.

I normally buy my Pialligo Estate streaky bacon from “More than Meats” at Westfield Belconnen so when I was grocery shopping last week I snapped up the last two packets just in case there was a run on them and I may be caught short. I also snapped them in the Snapchat sense too (see what I did there).

After yesterday’s (Thursday 2016-07-28) day of eating out I thought I needed some home cooking tonight. I’d already done chicken protection of beef so it’s the chook’s turn to be protected tonight and there is no better way to protect meat than with streaky bacon.

What you need to make Chicken Maryland even more awesome

• Chicken Maryland—1 piece (as big as you like it)
• Cheese—1 or 2 slices of Coon cheese
• Streaky bacon—as many rashers as you like
• Red quinoa and brown rice—1 packet of Coles microwave red quinoa and brown rice
• Frozen vegetables—whatever and as much as you like

How you cook this

1. Cook the red quinoa and brown rice in the microwave oven according the instructions on the packaging (90 seconds).
2. Put the rice in the bottom of a Pyrex container or onto a baking tray it’s really up to you and how crunchy you want your rice.
3. Lay a couple of slices of Coon cheese on the top of the Chicken Maryland.
4. Wrap the cheese to the chicken with rashers of streaky Pialligo Estate bacon.
5. Use your hands to massage the bacon onto the cheese and chicken so it sticks firmly.
6. Be loving and gentle as you massage the smoky fragrant bacon knowing your attention to detail will pay off as it cooks.
7. Lay this masterpiece over the rice so that the hot tasty juices of the chicken, cheese and bacon drip into the red quinoa and brown rice and add flavour to the lovely textures of the grains.
8. Place into an oven which has been preheated to 200 °C (400 °F) and cook for 20 minutes. At 20 minutes turn the heat down to 150 °C (300 °F) and cook for a further 40 minutes.
9. It’s important to thoroughly cook the chicken. Wrapping it and putting it over a layer of quinoa rice protects the underside from the oven heat so you risk under cooking it. As much as I love a good infection with Salmonella and Campylobacter I don’t want to get enteritis (diarrhoea) myself.
10. Once cooked, remove the meat and rice from the oven and allow it to rest.
11. Prepare your vegetables by steaming them or cooking them in the microwave.
12. Plate up the meal.

After you’ve plated up!

1. The arty farty photographers say you make a picture, the more basic will say shoot a photograph. Basically I shoot a photograph at this stage and then after I’ve eaten I make a picture in Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop. So that must mean I’m basically arty farty!
2. Eat the meal while standing up at the kitchen counter because my dinner/work table is covered in computer stuff and I can’t use my couch because the so called leather is falling apart.
3. Wash the dishes
4. Write the recipe
5. Blog (verb)
6. Vlog (verb) because now this is fun and I’m enjoying the learning curve of video editing software. I’m using Final Cut Pro X.

How did it taste?

Bloody superb! How could it not with Australia’s best artisan bacon plus Australia’s best cheese all around Coles hormone-free and antibiotic-free chicken.

Feedback

Let me know what you think.

If you cook it please send me photographs and comments.

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