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Chicken Bread - Step by Step

The chicken bread is one of my favourite braided and stuffed breads. Below are the step by step instructions with pics on how to make the recipe.
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Servings 3 Medium Loafs

Ingredients
  

Ingredients for Dough

  • 4 cups all purpose/plain flour
  • 1 tbsp. instant yeast
  • 2 tbsp. powdered milk optional
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 4 tbsp. oil
  • 1 egg plus 1 for glazing
  • 1 tsp. castor sugar
  • 1/4 tsp baking powder to reduce any yeasty smell

Ingredients for Chicken Filling

  • 1 1/2 - 2 cups chicken boiled and shredded 250-300 gm when uncooked
  • 1 medium or 2 small onion chopped finely
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp. black pepper
  • 2 tbsp. coriander leaves
  • 4 chopped green chillies
  • 1 tsp. garam masala powder
  • 2 tbsp. flour
  • 2 tbsp. butter
  • 1 cup milk
  • sesame seeds as required

Instructions
 

For the Filling

  • Heat 2 tbsp. butter fry onion till soft then add 2 tbsp. flour with 1 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. black pepper, 1 tsp. garam masala.
    Add the milk, cook till thick, mix in the shredded chicken add chopped green chilies and coriander leaves, remove and cool completely.
    The filling will look like this: Creamy Chicken Filling

For the Dough

  • In a bowl mix together 4 cups flour, 1 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. castor sugar, 2 tbsp. milk powder, 1 tbsp. yeast, 1/4 tsp baking powder, 4 tbsp. oil and 1 egg, knead to a medium soft dough with slightly warm water, leave to rise for 1 hour. Divide the dough into two or three depending on how big you want the loaves. Proceed with viewing the subsequent steps to see how the bread is shaped.
  • STEP 2: Put your filling in the center of the rectangle and make slits on both of the longer sides.
  • STEP 3: Start bringing the topmost slit ends across from each other alternately
  • STEP 4: Keep going, remember to alternate, like a crisscross fashion. Left to right…right to left.
  • STEP 5: This is how it will look as you get further down the bread with the crossing of the sides/braiding.
  • STEP 6: When you reach the end, leave a tail at the bottom, just for the appearance. You can just tuck everything neatly in if you like, but I prefer to have that bit of a tail at the bottom of the loaf. 🙂
  • STEP 7: Grease a tray and place your breads. The recipe says to make 2 loaves but I prefer dividing it into three and making three average sized loaves. That is up to your preference!
  • STEP 8: Apply egg-wash and sprinkle the sesame seeds…then bake in a preheated oven at 200 C for about 25 minutes or until done.
  • (Egg-wash means to beat an egg with a tsp. of water then brush it all over your bread)
  • Here’s a twist to the chicken bread, you can make them in baby size too…this is how they look before baking.
  • FINAL RESULT: Voila! Enjoy your delicious chicken bread!!
  • Right after taking out of the oven apply butter well on whole bread and let it rest covered with a cloth for 2-3 min to soften the bread completely.

Notes

I always make big batches of chicken bread at a go and then wrap them well in cling film or foil, then put them in some sort of a cellophane bag and tie it up tight and freeze. They can keep up to 4 weeks! When you need one, you just thaw it out overnight in the fridge or keep it out on the counter until it’s thawed out, then unwrap and zap it in the micro for a minute or so until it warms up, and then splash a little bit of water using your fingertips on it and put it in the oven for about 5 minutes to freshen it back up. Becomes as good as new! 🙂