#KitchenClearout recipe : Poutine-style chicken & potatoes

I'm on holiday and that usually means I turn to my baking cupboard for a huge clearout, using up ends of packets and seeing what is lurking right at the back. For some reason, this time I decided to tackle the fridge. After a huge stocktake and dejunk of all the half-used condiments and assorted jars, I got out all the leftovers and decided to throw them all together and see what happened. It was actually quite successful ! We'd been to a restaurant with the visiting French grandparents earlier in the week and I opted for a Canadian dish called poutine - their version was made with pulled pork in gravy and BBQ sauce, with chips mixed in and cheese melted on top. That was my inspiration for using up the leftovers from Sunday lunch (and whatever else was in the fridge !).

After a good rummage, I had : 2 roast chicken thighs, 1 ready-cooked smoked chicken thigh, some chips from the chippy - the kids have jumped on board the zero food waste bandwagon and won't throw anything away now ! - some roast potatoes and carrots, as well as some gravy. I also had the end of a bag of grated cheese and some puff pastry offcuts.

 Poutine-style chicken & potatoes

ingredients :

leftover cooked chicken

leftover cooked carrots

leftover cooked roast potatoes

leftover cooked chips

gravy

BBQ sauce

offcuts of puff pastry (just because they were there and needed using up !)

grated cheese

Chop the chicken into chunks and put it in an oven-proof dish. Add the carrots, a good squeeze of smoky BBQ sauce and gravy and give it a stir. Scatter over the offcuts of puff pastry (if you happen to have any to hand - I wouldn't add them specially !) and put in the oven at 180° for half an hour while you prepare the potatoes.

Chop the roast potatoes into thick slices and rissole in a large frying pan until they start going golden and crispy. Don't move them about too often, to allow the brown crust to develop. After 10-15 minutes, when they are getting nicely browned, add the chips. Cook for a further 5 minutes until they are heated through and crispy.

Season with salt and pepper. Scatter over the grated cheese and heat for a couple more minutes until it has melted. If you let the cheese melt through to the bottom of the frying pan, it will make a lovely layer of crispy cheese.

Serve the cheesy potatoes then pour the chicken mixture on top.

The kids did say that it looked like a pile of sick, but they wolfed it down all the same ! Tummy fill 1, land fill 0 :)

If you want to see a recipe for a more authentic poutine, you might like my Poutine AKA Posh Cheesy Chips & Gravy post.

Adding to this month's #KitchenClearout linky.