Recipe for Warm fig, chicken and mushroom salad
Inspired by a recipe from Country Living
Serves 2 (easily scaled up)
2 skinless chicken breasts
2 giant flat mushrooms
2 large figs (3 smaller ones)
A few big handfuls mixed leaves
Black pepper
For the marinade
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp crumbled, dried mint
Combine the marinade ingredients together and pour half over the chicken breasts in one bowl and half over the mushrooms in another bowl. Use your fingers to rub the marinade into the mushrooms to make sure that there is a light layer of oil all over (mushrooms have a sponge like affinity for olive oil so don’t be tempted to keep adding more, they will still cook fine with less). Season the chicken and the mushrooms with fresh black pepper and leave to marinade for about an hour.
Grill or griddle the chicken, adding the mushrooms after about five minutes. Once the chicken is cooked through (about ten minutes, depending on the heat of your chosen cooking method), leave it to rest somewhere warm for five minutes on a plate that will catch any juices that come out. Either cook the mushrooms for a little longer while the chicken is resting or take them out to rest too.
Quarter the figs and distribute these and the salad leaves across two plates. Thickly slice the mushrooms and chicken and place on the salad. Catch as much of the juice from the chicken and mushrooms as you can to drizzle over the salad and toss it all together. The chicken, figs and mushrooms are all very juicy but go for a splash of olive oil if you think it needs it.