More ingredient gathering – clearly this is quite a simple recipe.

Start off by flattening the chicken breast, then put the mozzarella in the middle with some thyme.

Then wrap the mozzarella in the breast to make a nice parcel.

If you’re me, it is at this point in the recipe that you realise that you forgot to wrap the mozzarella in the ham before putting it in the chicken, so you have to unwrap them and do it all over again. Idiot.

Lay out the ingredients for the coating. It is at this point that your wife comes into the kitchen and asks why you are using ‘every plate in the house’ for this recipe.

Coated with the flour, egg and breadcrumbs – ready to cook.

Do the initial cooking in a pan to make them nice and golden.

Bake in the oven to make sure they are cooked right through and melt the cheese.

In this instance I served the chicken with a simple pasta and tomato sauce. I do think it looks quite impressive when you cut open the chicken to expose the ham and cheese. It gives a lovely contrast in flavours as well.

Gather the ingredients. I made a couple of changes here. I used Wild Oat Stout rather then Guinness, simply because I found it hard to buy a single bottle of Guinness, rather than a four-pack. Normally this would be an excuse to drink the other three, but I was being good 🙂 I also marinated the beef in the stout in advance, rather than just adding it in the middle. For two reasons – it allowed the beef to absorb more of the flavour of the stout (and vice-versa), and it tenderised the meat a bit more, as I was using flank steak which can be a bit tough.

Get the recipe out to make sure you follow it right – and to show off your fancy book-weight thingy from Lakeland.

Prep the ingredients – dice, slice, chop, grate etc. – generally make everything smaller.

Using Lisa’s fancy Marco Pierre White casserole, soften the onions.

Add the other vegetables…

…then the beef and the herbs.

Finally add the stout, and stick in the oven.

Halfway through, take it out and stir

The filling is done.

Roll out the pastry

Mix the filling with the cheese, put in a dish, and put the pastry on top. Just folding the edges of the pastry in looks a bit rubbish when it’s like this, but after cooking it actually looks quite good.

Ta-daa.

Pie and mash – lovely jubbly.