Chicken and bacon fingers with root vegetable mash

An easy mid-week supper with lots of kid-friendly appeal. Cooking chicken breasts this way keeps them from drying out, and the root vegetable mash is a good way of disguising trickier winter ingredients like swede.

Ingredients

• 2 chicken breasts, cut into 4 fingers
• 8 rashers bacon
• 4 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1 small swede, peeled and roughly chopped
• 6 large potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
• 2 tbsp butter
• Splash milk
• Splash vegetable oil
• Salt and freshly ground pepper

Method

1. Pre-heat oven to 180ºC
2. Wrap one bacon rasher around each chicken finger, brush with oil and bake for 30-40 minutes until bacon is golden (turn once or twice during cooking)
3. Place carrots, swede and potatoes in a pan of boiling water, and simmer for 20-25 minutes until tender, strain (reserving 250ml of the cooking water) and mash with butter and milk until smooth

To make a pan gravy

1. Remove the chicken and whisk 2 tsp flour into the juices, slowly add a small amount of vegetable water and bring to a simmer
2. Keep adding vegetable water until you get a thick, golden gravy – decant into a jug and serve with the chicken and mash