Mediterranean Chicken Stew

This is one of those dishes that split the crowd.  I liked it a lot, Son & heir liked it and hubby didn't like it much - from which I detect that it may well be a "women & children only" dish!

We had bought a chicken last weekend, as a fall-back position if it transpired that we couldn't get hold of a piece of roasting bacon.  As we finally managed to secure an enormous joint, the chicken went into the freezer and became part of this week's menus.

As such, I simply roasted the chicken during the day and stripped the carcass into two halves of usable meat.  One half went in today's chicken stew, the other was intended for the chicken pie that I had scheduled.

I'm always on the lookout for "things in which to use leftover roast chicken", as we rarely eat more than half a chicken in a roast dinner - which leaves the other half.  Now as much as I like cold roast chicken in sandwiches, it seems that I'm alone in that in our house - and there's only so many roast chicken sandwiches a girl can eat.

The original recipe (which I found on "The Kitchn" - click to view) recommended using a rotisserie chicken for speed, so I reckoned "the other half of the roast chicken" would qualify in this regard.

Believe it or not, apart from forgetting to include two components of the dish (the bay leaves and the lemon juice), I almost followed the recipe as it is set out on the originating blog.  I'm quite sure the lack of bay leaf won't have hurt the recipe any, and I was quite glad I had forgotten the lemon juice, as the tomatoes made it quite acidic enough.  Don't get me wrong, it wasn't over-acidic (probably because I'd used the lovely Tarantella tinned tomatoes, which are just beautiful), but I can't help but think that a tablespoon of lemon juice might have tipped it over the edge.  The one addition I made to the recipe was the addition of a tablespoonful of tomato ketchup.  I dunno, I think it just adds a little spicy something to a tomato sauce - and the sweetness often will take the edge off of the tomatoes.

I served it with mashed potato and tenderstem broccoli (you're going to get sick of hearing about that stuff, if you're not already!) and it was a lovely mid-week supper.

MEDITERRANEAN CHICKEN STEW  (Serves 4)

Ingredients :

2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, grated
2 tsp dried oregano
400g tin of chopped tomatoes in juice
1 tbsp tomato ketchup
400g tin of chick peas, in water
150ml chicken stock
2 bay leaves
freshly ground black pepper
half a medium sized roast chicken, shredded into chunks
a handful of olives, sliced
1 tbsp lemon juice (optional).

Method :

1.  In a large, deep saucepan, heat the olive oil and add the onion.  Cook until softened but not browned - some 5-8 minutes.

2.  Add the garlic and oregano, cook for a further minute, stirring well.

3.  Add the tomatoes, chick peas, tomato ketchup, chicken stock, bay leaves and pepper.  Bring to a boil and cook for 5 minutes.

4.  Add the chicken meat, stir gently, lower the heat and simmer uncovered for a further 10 minutes.

5.  Just prior to serving, stir in the olives and continue to cook until they have heated through.

6.  Serve with mashed potato and a green vegetable of your choosing.

.