Tonight's dinner is Spanish Chicken, a dish I've adapted from practice and several recipes in the cupboard, the most influential of which is by Emalee Chapman.
So here's what you need:
--A whole chicken
--A ham slice
--A red capsicum pepper
--A medium onion
--Two tomatoes
--Dry Sherry
--Chicken Stock
--Red pepper flakes
--Garlic
--Salt and pepper
--Some asparagus
--Olive oil
I suggest you serve this with saffron rice and a salad. So gather what you'll need for that, too.
--Rice
--Saffron
--Chicken stock
and:
--Salad stuff.
So, cut the chicken into pieces (cut out the back and save for stock; then two breasts, leg/thigh combos, wings...). Put some oil in a large pan with high sides over medium heat; once it's hot add some peeled garlic cloves for a few minutes then pull them out and discard.
Add the chicken skin side down and let it brown, turn and do the same--about 8-10 minutes total. Pull out the chicken and set aside. While this is happening slice the ham into small pieces -- about the size or half the size of your pinky finger seems fine to me. Then dice the onion and cut the capsicum into pieces a little smaller than the ham. Dice the tomatoes.
Add the ham to the pan and stir once in a while for about five minutes. Add the onion, the capsicum and 1/8th teaspoon of red pepper flakes. Stir once or twice.
Once the onions have started to become translucent, add 1/2 cup of stock bring to a boil to deglaze the pan. Add the tomatoes. Let this cook together for about five minutes. Add another 1/2 cup of the stock and let this cook for five minutes.
Just added the second round of stock and ready to stir it up.
Put the chicken pieces back in the pan and add 1/2 cup of dry sherry.
All together now. Notice that the chicken isn't even close to being cooked. It will finish cooking in the pan and absorb the flavors of the sauce, the ham, and the vegetables.
Let this cook together for about 30 minutes. About five minutes before it's done, through a handful of asparagus tops into pan.Meanwhile, make the rice. Cook the rice as you usually would, except replace 1/2 of the water with chicken stock and add a big pinch of saffron threads.
Put the salad together.
Once it's all ready, lay out plates of rice.
A cup of chicken stock and a generous pinch of saffron add both color and flavor to the rice.
Then, serve the chicken, vegetables, and sauce atop the rice. Even without the yellow band of color on our plates, this is very colorful dish--the red of the capsicum and tomato, the pink of the ham, the brown of the chicken and the green of the asparagus, all on the rich ocre of the saffron rice.
This goes really well with a white Rioja but a crisp Chardonnay or even a lighter red like a Gamay will work, too.
