Minced Chicken in Oven Dish

You can make minced chicken meat yourself (as Beb describes in her recipe). But grinding meat yourself doesn’t make it taste any better. It’s just more work.  That’s why I go to my butcher, who has lovely minced chicken at hand.

I like oven dishes. They are easy because the oven does most of the work. While everything is bubbling away I have my hands free to prepare other dishes in the meantime.

This dish uses simple herbs like nutmeg and pepper. I like. It’s enough for 4 people and ready in 1 hour (the way I make it).

Beb indicates that we have to make chicken meat similar as in the previous recipe. That’s recipe # 303 and it states:

Ingredients

3/4 kg breast chicken fillets
2 large boiled potatoes
1 egg
bread-crumbs
oil

Herbs

3 tablespoons of shredded onions
1 slice of garlic clove
1 tablespoon of chopped celery
pepper
salt
nutmeg

Cut the meat from the leg. A broth can be made from the bones. Work the meat twice through the meat grinder. Then grind the potatoes too. Mix the potatoes with the chicken meat, onions, garlic, pepper, salt and nutmeg. Form balls with two dessert spoons. Beat the egg with 1 tablespoon of water. Roll the balls through the breadcrumb, then through the whipped egg and then again through the breadcrumbs. Fry the chicken balls in hot oil.

Our recipe # 304 says:

Minced Chicken in Oven Dish # 304 translated from Beb Vuyk’s Groot Indonesisch kookboek, page 258.

Make chicken minced meat as indicated in the previous recipe, but mix some spoons of broth through. This makes the mix more tender. Add the meat to an oven dish. Sprinkle it with bread-crumbspan and add a few lumps of butter. Bake it in the oven.

I always have to giggle when I read Beb’s recipes and she doesn’t say how much pepper, salt and nutmeg is needed. In this recipes she also doesn’t mention how long the dish needs in the oven.

I do the following and I use 500 grams of minced chicken meat and add:

1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of pepper
2 teaspoons nutmeg

I mix the meat, onions, garlic, pepper, salt, nutmeg and chopped celery in a bowl and add some broth – about three tablespoons. I use a broth cube to make a simple bouillon. I use a beef broth because it gives a lot of extra flavor.

I still had some potatoes left from yesterday. I cut them in small pieces and scoop them through the mix.

I have a nice looking oven dish at hand and make a layer of mixed minced meat and I pour a whipped egg over it.

On top of the egg, I sprinkle bread-crumbs and a few lumps of butter. It looks pretty, but how long does it take in the oven? ?

I’ll bake my chicken dish at 180 degrees Celsius for 40 minutes. Ofcourse every oven or oven dish is different (my layer of meat is about 5 centimeters), so keep an eye on it and check the meat after half an hour.

I can not say it’s a super special dish with exquisite flavors, but that’s not always necessary. It is a lovely, simple crunchy oven dish and the nutmeg gives it a special touch. My 7-year-old daughter loves it.

We eat it with white rice, a cucumber salad and homemade sambal.