Crispy Stuffed Chicken, Pancetta and Mushroom Pancakes

For Pancake Day 2023 these crispy stuffed chicken, pancetta and mushroom pancakes are the perfect savoury dish to celebrate Shrove Tuesday. Crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside and perfectly served with a green salad and some winter coleslaw.

If you’re feeling organised, you could have roast chicken the preceding Sunday 19th February and use the leftover chicken for these pancakes – they always seem to taste better with leftover roast chicken!

Ingredients

• 1 white onion, finely diced
• 150g pancetta
• 200g mushrooms (any – chestnut, button etc), sliced up
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and very finely chopped or grated
• 450g cooked, shredded chicken
• 300ml chicken stock
• 200g crème fraîche
• 100g cavolo nero or kale
• 6 pancakes (if using ready made use these ones by Abra-ca-debora)
• 100g mature Cheddar / mozzarella mix, grated
• Fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped
• Sea salt and black pepper

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200C static or 180C fan.

2. In a deep pan gently fry off the onion and pancetta in some olive oil until golden – don’t let them catch. Next add the mushrooms and combine until cooked through, then add the garlic and mix well for about another minute or so.

3. Into the pan add the stock and bring up to a good rolling simmer. Add the chicken and then simmer down and add the crème fraîche. Simmer for 5 minutes until thickened slightly and season well with salt and pepper. Stir in the greens and a small handful of the cheese as well as some chopped parsley.

4. Take a large ovenproof dish (we use this rectangular ovenware from Staub), stuff and roll up each pancake, and top with the rest of the cheese and bake for 15-20 minutes until golden. You can make the mixture in advance and chill and this does enhance the flavour doing this but it’s not essential. Garnish with more parsley and serve.

NB: We had some mixture leftover so we boiled up some rigatoni and combined that together with some pecorino cheese which was delicious too. Recipe here.