Chicken Breast Sous Vide – Praying for Summer Sun.

We are being threatened by summer here in Ireland. As with most Irish summers, there is a lot more threat than delivery. Yet, we live in hope. Each year, praying (those of us that still believe in our direct line to God) that the summer will live up to the imagined heights of the dull, uninspiring summers gone before.

You won’t find me on bended knee, praying for some decent weather. No, I am a man of action. If the Powers That Be (Me capitalising that bit is me hedging my bets) refuse to deliver on summer sun, I’m going to do what I can to make things around here as sunny as possible. What better way than with Chicken Breast Sous Vide with Ciabatta and Salad?

The chicken breast bit of this doesn’t have many ingredients.

This is a pretty easy recipe. All one needs is some chicken breasts, some lemon zest, butter and thyme.

The first thing to do is to zest a lemon. I show it here only because I liked the colour of the lemon zest. Note the shadowy photo. No summer sun!

A nice bit of zest adds a nice sharp edge to the otherwise soft flavours.

Next, assemble the chicken breasts and other ingredients as shown in the following photo.

I got a mini assembly line going. here’s the end of the line, as it were.

Place in bags and vacuum seal.

A nice pair of breasts, if you will forgive the terminology.

These then need to be cooked sous vide at 65ºC for an hour. When they come out, they will look like this next picture.

They don’t look so nice after sweating in plastic for an hour. Neither would yours.

Once sliced and served on delicious ciabatta the chicken really comes into its own.

A nice drizzling of olive oil makes this a totally delicious dish.

I served the chicken on ciabatta, with a mixed salad, olive oil and a nice drop of white wine. It rained outside. But, we had summer on a plate and we can only hope that when those living above the clouds will see it and decide that it must be summer.

If that doesn’t work, I may just have to pray….