Feta-ccompli..

Apologies up front for the dreadful pun in the title, I blame too much wine last night.

Yesterday was our 28^th wedding anniversary (and 31 years together), so that seemed worth a little celebration, but not too much exertion on the kitchen front.  So I bring you Lemon Chicken III: The Celebration.

I’ve made this dish a number of times, and it being a wedding anniversary, it fits doubly with the #somethingoldsomethingnew challenge.

Put chicken breasts in a dish with 200g feta thickly sliced, as many sprigs of fresh oregano as you have to hand, juice and zest of a lemon, grinding of pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.

Bake until the chicken is cooked at around 355F.

That’s the theory – the reality this time was slightly different. When cooked, because the feta is in large chunks it’s meant to roast, get a little brown around the edges and hold its shape. Normally I use a combined sheep/goat feta. However this time I could only get cow feta, which was much softer, and should have set off alarm bells. It didn’t hold its shape like it was supposed to, but melted into slightly amorphous mounds around the dish.

However, I’d also cooked some baby potatoes, so after the chicken as cooked, I drained off the lemony oil, which had bits of melted feta in it and drizzled that over the potatoes, and it made a pretty good dressing. Then I corralled the amorphous mass of feta back into sturdier shapes. All it in all it worked pretty well. Next time if I was using cow feta, I’d put the cheese in when the chicken was half-way cooked rather than at the start.

Served with a decent Chablis that I’d had tucked away for a special occasion, and this seemed like a likely candidate, operation anniversary was deemed a success.