Chicken, Broccoli & Potato Bake

📝 Ingredients

• 800 g waxy potatoes
• 1 head of broccoli (about 400 g)
• 500 g chicken breast (3 fillets, about 170 g each)
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 20 g unsalted butter
• 40 g plain flour
• 600 ml semi-skimmed milk
• 1 pinch of nutmeg
• 80 g grated Emmental
• Salt, black pepper

🍴 Utensils

• Large saucepan
• Frying pan
• Saucepan
• Whisk
• Baking dish
• Colander

📖 Steps

1. Preheat the oven to 200 °C. Peel the potatoes, rinse them and cut into 5 mm thick slices. Cut the broccoli into small bite-sized florets; peel the stalk and dice it, as it's edible too.
2. Drop the potatoes into a large pan of boiling salted water and cook for 8 min, adding the broccoli for the last 3 minutes. The potatoes should stay slightly firm: the tip of a knife should go in with a little resistance. Drain gently.
3. Cut the chicken into 2 cm cubes. Heat the oil in a frying pan over a high heat and sear the cubes for 5 to 6 min, turning them, until golden and no longer pink in the middle. Season lightly with salt and set aside off the heat.
4. Make the béchamel: melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat, add the flour all at once and whisk for 1 min without letting it colour. Pour in the cold milk in one go, whisking vigorously: cold milk on the hot mixture prevents lumps.
5. Keep whisking over a medium heat for 5 to 8 min, without stopping and scraping the bottom well, until the sauce thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Add the nutmeg and season with salt and pepper. It should stay fairly runny: it will thicken further in the oven.
6. In a baking dish about 30 × 20 cm, spread out half the potatoes, scatter over the chicken and broccoli, then cover with the rest of the potatoes. Pour over the béchamel, using the back of a spoon to let it run between the layers.
7. Sprinkle over the grated Emmental and bake for 25 min, until the top is nicely golden and the sauce is bubbling at the edges. If the cheese browns too quickly, cover with a sheet of foil for the rest of the cooking time.
8. Leave the bake to rest for 5 min out of the oven before serving: the sauce holds better and the kids won't burn their tongues. Cut into squares with a spatula to keep neat layers on the plate.