Chicken and peppers in pastry

My friend makes this and she kindly gave me the recipe to post up. I rarely work with pastry - mostly due to lack of confidence after a disastrous steak and ale pie and few years ago, but I thought I would give this a try. It went pretty well apart from the fact that I was too lazy to read the defrosting instructions on the pastry first and we almost had a very sticky unusable pastry block. To ensure that puff pastry is light and puffy one has to preserve the layer structure when rolling it out and not mess it up by making it into a ball and rolling it out.I quite liked this but I think there was too much pastry - so maybe I should have rolled it out thinner and perhaps only use half a pack of pastry for the two servings! Also I think next time I would use a stronger cheese than brie, maybe something like blue cheese. I guess one could also exchange the peppers for other veg such as spinach. Anyway, good luck :)

Ingredients (serves 2)

• 1 packet puff pastry (voitaikina)
• 2 chicken breasts, boneless and skinless
• olive oil
• mixed herbs for marinade
• 1-2 sweet red ramiro (pointy) peppers
• brie, sliced
• 1 egg  beaten or some milk for glazing the pastry
• salad to accompany the meal

Method

1. Butterfly chicken breast and marinade in olive oil, mixed herbs, salt and pepper briefly (this is not strictly a marinade, but more to coat the chicken in something tasty)
2. Brown the chicken breasts in a pan and put to one side once done.
3. Meanwhile, roast some sweet red peppers under a hot grill. I like to remove the seeds and insides and halve them and rub some olive oil over them before putting them under a really hot grill for 5-10 mins. Let cool and then peel the skin off the peppers and slice into strips.
4. Open up the chicken breasts, put a few strips of roasted red pepper in middle of chicken, add some slices of brie, then wrap in puff pastry. You can do this however you like.
5. Put the wrapped chicken on a baking tray and glaze with the milk or the egg.
6. Bake for 30-40 mins at 200C, or until the pastry looks risen and done.
7. Serve with salad.

Hyvää Ruokahalua!