Flygande Jacob

Last night I made a traditionally Swedish dish for dinner called Flygande Jacob..or translated Flying Jacob!  Although you are clearly now conjuring up images of small men called Jacob flying round it is nothing quite so abstract!

It is a dish made up of pre-roasted chicken breast, cream, chilli sauce, peanuts, bacon and...wait for it...bananas! Yes that's right bananas.  I grew up eating very traditional English food and so when I learned of the use of bananas in a dish like this I was sure I was hearing wrong or things were lost in translation...apparently not! I remember the first time I had this dish was my first ever visit to Sandra's Mum's house on my first ever trip to Umeå.  They explained what it was for me and I tried hard not to look concerned when I heard the addition of bananas!  As it turned out it was gorgeous and I have been a big fan of it ever since :)

You find banana popping up in all sorts of random places in Swedish cooking...most alarmingly I find is the much loved banana and curry sauce PIZZA that is readily available here.  Seems ever so wrong to me!  Mind you when I was younger the only place I ate bananas warmed in any way was in guides when we stuffed them full of chocolate buttons, wrapped them in tin foil and threw them on the campfire to melt!  Aside from that it was the obligatory banana splits, milkshakes etc!

So here is the recipe for Flygande Jacob as I know you are all dying to go out and try it!

Ingredients:  

1 pre-grilled or roasted chicken 

1 tub of cream

Some heinz chilli sauce

Peanuts

Streaky bacon (I never said this was a healthy dish!!)

1 banana

Salt and pepper

Method:

• Strip the chicken and put the meat in an oven proof dish, sprinkle over a handful of peanuts and sliced banana.
• In a bowl mix the cream and chilli sauce, add the chilli sauce slowly till the cream turns slightly pink. Add salt and pepper to taste.
• Pour this over the chicken.
• Grill or fry the bacon and lay over the top of the dish
• Whack in an oven for about 20 minutes to heat it all through (about 200 degrees, but then I cook most everything on about 200!)
• Serve with rice, salad, bread, anything really.

Mmmm tasty!  Smaklig Måltid! 

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