CHICKEN-A-LA-KING HOTPOT

It may seem like a lot of work to prepare this usually quick meal, but it’s actually easy. You can even braai a few extra pieces of chicken over the coals a night or two before you want to make the dish so that you have pre-cooked meat ready.

Serves 4 • Preparation: 40 minutes

Cooking time: 1 hour • Oven temperature: 200°C

• 45ml butter

• 1 onion, chopped

• 2 large carrots, diced

• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped (optional)

• 80ml flour

• 250ml hot milk

• 350ml hot chicken stock

• 5ml Dijon mustard

• 250ml frozen peas

• ½ head of broccoli, broken into florets

• 500ml cooked chicken, shredded

TOPPING

• 2 or 3 large potatoes, cut into 5mm slices

• 2 large knobs of butter

1 Make the filling Melt the butter in a saucepan and sauté the onion and carrots until glossy. You can now add garlic if you want. Scoop out the vegetables but keep the butter. Stir the flour into the melted butter and fry for another minute. Whisk in the milk and stock with a balloon whisk and bring to the boil. Let the sauce simmer for a few minutes until thickened. Season with the mustard, salt and pepper to taste and mix in the fried onion and carrots as well as the peas, broccoli and cooked chicken. Spoon into an ovenproof dish; preheat the oven.

2 While you’re making the filling, boil the potato slices in salted water for about 10 minutes until par-cooked. The thickness of the slices will determine the cooking time, while the size of your baking dish will determine how many potatoes you need. Carefully drain the potato slices and allow to cool slightly.

3 Season the cooked potato slices with salt and pepper and arrange them on top of the chicken filling so that they overlap each other slightly; dot with butter and bake uncovered for 30 minutes or until the potato layer is golden-brown. I like to turn on the grill for a few minutes at the end of the cooking time and brush some butter over the topping again, but you can decide for yourself how brown you want the topping to be.