Gyros-style chicken breast

I’m leaving Warsaw first thing tomorrow (it was supposed to be today, but work took longer than I could manage) and I’ll be away until at least 29 December, possibly longer, I don’t know yet. What do you do in a situation like that? I conduct a fridge inspection.

You know I haven’t done all that much cooking this past week. So stuff’s been piling up in the fridge, goodness knows where from. Personally I believe in extraterrestrial civilisations 😉 Seriously though (I don’t), I know where it came from. I bought celery because I wanted to do something fun with it. I like that very distinctive taste. So there it was. I also found a hell of a lot of carrots (they’ll last a few days), half a red pepper, plenty of onions (they should keep too) and chives (wow, didn’t see that coming).

I always have rice, and chicken breasts have never been a problem either (particularly since Ninka had been staying with me since yesterday, so I was prepared to make lunch for a child).

So two forces came together. On the one hand, a strong desire to clear out the fridge. Food shouldn’t go to waste, after all. On the other, a strong aversion to eating potatoes with breaded bits of chicken and sweet carrots. So I came up with something. A very strange dish. I haven’t a clue what it might remind anyone of. Luckily, among the spices I found a packet of “gyros seasoning” due to expire in January 2014. So that fitted in perfectly.

I’ll admit I was afraid it would turn out disgusting. Instead it turned out to be a perfectly decent dish. Somewhere between chicken gyros and classic chicken with vegetables. So I recommend it. It tastes good, it’s quick to make and it eases your conscience.

At a glance:

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Serves: 2 people

How many calories? Counting calories before you’ve even made your New Year’s resolutions, seriously?

Ingredients for gyros-style chicken:

• 1 chicken breast
• 1 boil-in-bag sachet of jasmine rice
• 6 stalks of celery
• half a red pepper
• 2 medium carrots
• 1 medium white onion
• a handful of chives
• half a packet of gyros seasoning
• salt
• a tablespoon of soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons of olive oil

Method (finishing off the contents of the fridge):

First I cooked the jasmine rice in its bag and set it aside to drain.

I washed the chicken breast thoroughly, trimmed off the membranes and cut it into thin strips. I heated the olive oil in a medium saucepan and added the chicken pieces. I salted them straight away, not too generously, and gave them a thorough stir for a moment. While the chicken was frying I chopped the onion into chunky pieces and added it to the pan. Stirred it up. I added half a packet of gyros seasoning and mixed it in thoroughly.

I cut the carrots into long, thin strips. Into the pan they went, and I stirred again. I cut the pepper into thin strips and tossed that in too. Gave it a stir, of course. That’s when I turned down the “heat” (from the original 6 to 5 on a scale of 1–10).

I chopped the celery and added it to the pan. Another stir. Finally I chopped the chives and in they went. A quick stir. Then I added the whole bagful of rice. I took the pan off the “heat” and mixed everything very thoroughly. Dinner’s ready 🙂 Enjoy!