Poached chicken & rocket baguette with green goddess sauce

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 4 soft white Vietnamese bread rolls, split in half lengthways
• 30 g soft butter, to spread
• 50 g rocket
• Pickled carrot and cucumber, to serve
• ½ bunch coriander, washed
• 4 tbsp roasted hazelnuts, crushed
• Juice of 1 lime, to finish
• 1 fresh jalapeno, finely chopped
• Chicken
• 1.5–1.7 kg free-range chicken
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled
• 3 spring onions, white only, reserve green tips
• 1 jalapeno chilli
• 3–4 litres filtered water
• Sea salt, to taste

Green goddess sauce

• 2 long green chillies, roughly chopped
• 1 jalapeno, roughly chopped
• 1 clove garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1 spring onion, roughly chopped
• Handful each of parsley, chives, tarragon and dill, washed in filtered water
• ½ cup whole egg mayonnaise
• ⅓ cup cream fraiche
• 1 tbsp hulled tahini
• 2 tsp crushed white anchovies

Method

For chicken, place chicken, garlic, onions and chilli in a large stockpot, pour over filtered water and season with salt. Bring to the boil over a high heat. Reduce heat to medium and simmer for 20 minutes. Turn off heat, cover and leave to stand for 1 hour. Remove chicken from cooking water, drain well and shred or slice meat. Cooking water can be strained, packaged in containers and either frozen (for up to 6 months) or kept in the fridge (for up to 4 weeks) to use as a chicken stock. For green goddess sauce, place chilli, jalapeno, garlic and spring onion in the bowl of a food processor or thermomix and blend to a nice coarse paste. Add herbs, mayonnaise, cream fraiche, tahini and anchovies and blend to combine. Season with pepper to taste.

To assemble, wash rocket in filtered water. Butter rolls and arrange rocket, chicken, pickled cucumber and carrot inside. Drizzle with lashings of sauce and finish with coriander, a sprinkle of hazelnuts, a squeeze of lime juice and a little bit of sliced jalapeno for extra spice.

Recipes and images: Gary Mehigan for Brita.

NEXT: Looking for more light lunch and dinner ideas? Try this pumpkin and feta chicken salad.