Smoky Chicken & Bean Stew

Ok, I admit it, I’m perhaps a little obsessed with chorizo. Honestly, not every meal I cook is based around this spicy little Spanish number, but it is really useful – it’s really tasty, adds great flavour to dishes, and goes well with other ingredients I seem to be using a lot right now, like chicken, red peppers, beans and tomatoes, all of which lend themselves to easy, one-pot stews like this.

I’m quite a new convert to chicken thighs. I was never this biggest fan of the dark meat from chicken, and convinced myself that breast meat was best, but thighs are great. They’re full of flavour, much more so than breast meat, and tend not to try out so much. And, they’re cheaper to boot.

You could maybe spice things up here by adding a finely chopped, de-seeded red chilli. As ever, chicken stock from good quality bouillon concentrate is fine.

Smoky Chicken & Bean Stew (serves 2)

• 1 red onion, sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
• 1 red pepper, de-seeded and roughly chopped into chunks
• 4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, each cut into 3-4 strips
• 100g chorizo, sliced into coins and then each slice halved
• 4 tomatoes, de-seeded and roughly chopped
• 1 x 400g tin borlotti beans, rinsed and drained
• 300ml chicken stock
• 15g fresh coriander, roughly chopped (about half of a standard supermarket packet)

Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large pan or suitable casserole dish, and throw in the onions and garlic. Cook for 3-5 minutes until softened, but not brown. Add the smoked paprika and red pepper, stir well and cook for another 2 minutes.

Add the chorizo and chicken to the pan, and fry for 5 minutes, until the chicken is browned and the chorizo is releasing its fat.

Add the tomatoes and beans, and then pour over the chicken stock. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 20 minutes, until the sauce has thickened and the chicken is completely cooked.

Scatter over the coriander. Serve with warmed pitta breads.  

BBQ Sausage One Pot

Now, it isn’t, you understand, that one needs an excuse to cook something warming and hearty, perhaps even wintery, even at the height of summer, but with it starting to get darker earlier and earlier, and having returned from a jaunt to the shops where I found myself face to face with Christmas decorations, this seemed particularly appropriate last night.

The BBQ refers to the slightly smoky flavour imparted by the bacon and paprika, and a small amount of dried chilli flakes adds a little, but enough, heat. I’ve said this serves two, but you could easily stretch this to four by adding the other two sausages from the packet (and see recipe), and serving over some creamy mashed potato. Delicious!

BBQ Sausage One Pot (serves 2 hungry or greedy people, and see above)

• 4 good quality, thick pork sausages (about 300g – 4 from a 454g pack of 6)
• 6 rashers smoked back bacon
• 1 onion, sliced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 red pepper, deseeded and chopped into pieces, maybe 2 x 4 cm if you’re measuring (I didn’t have a fresh one so used a roasted one from a jar, which worked well)
• 1 400g can good chopped tomatoes
• 1 400g can borlotti beans
• 1/4 teaspoon dried chilli flakes
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 2 teaspoons sugar

Cut each sausage into four pieces, and cut the bacon into 2cm strips, removing some of the fat if there is a lot. Heat the olive oil in a large pan, and fry the sausage chunks, bacon pieces and chopped onion for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sausage is coloured, by which time the bacon should be cooked too. Throw in the chopped red pepper and fry for a further two minutes.

Drain the beans and rinse away the tinned-bean-gloop in a sieve, and add to the pan, then tip over the chopped tomatoes, and add a glug of water, maybe four tablespoons. Add the chilli flakes, smoked paprika and sugar, and stir well.

Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 – 15 minutes, or until the sausages are cooked through. Ladle into two bowls and enjoy with some good bread.

Chicken Jambalaya

This spicy chicken and rice dish is an easy take on the classic Louisiana dish, and is a great one-pot meal. Here, chilli replaces the more traditional cayenne for heat. Spicy sausage would likely be included in the original, and if you wanted you could include some here – I’ve previously added chorizo and it worked well – just throw in some coins cut from a chorizo ring when frying the onions et al.

Chicken Jambalaya (serves 4)

• 2 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 4 chicken breasts, cut into bitesize pieces
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
• 1 stick celery, finely chopped (I chop the onion, garlic and celery in a mini chopper, ending up with a quite finely chopped almost-mush)
• 2 red peppers, de-seeded and sliced
• 225g long grained rice
• 1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• 200ml chicken stock
• 1 teaspoon dried chilli flakes
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce

Heat one tablespoon of the oil in a large pan. Cook the chicken in the hot oil until it changes colour, and then remove from the pan to a plate. Set to one side.

Add the other tablespoon of oil to the pan, and fry the onion, garlic, celery and peppers for 3-4 minutes, and then return the chicken to the pan.

Add the rice, tomatoes, chilli flakes, chicken stock, Worcestershire sauce and sweet chilli sauce to the pan, and give everything a stir to combine. Bring to the boil, and then simmer for about 20 minutes or until the chicken and rice are cooked, adding a little more water to the pan if needed.