Chicken in Almond Sauce (or Pollo en Salsa de Almendras)

I've got to tell you, the jury is out on this one.

The recipe came care of my Twitter friend @LosBerchules - who is based in Spain at a hotel of the same name - and it was highly recommended.


I was very curious about where the flavour was going to come from in the recipe.  I could see that the fried bread, fried almonds, white wine and smoked paprika would obviously have flavour - as would the chicken - but I couldn't get my head around how they would all taste, together.

I accept that the bread and almonds have a gentle flavour and chicken is gently flavoured too - especially the chicken breast, which I was using.  However, the wine, garlic and smoked paprika - now they should get the whole thing dancing - but they didn't.

I also wound up with enough sauce for around 8-10 portions of the dish, a quite ridiculous amount of sauce - so I'd back off on the water, if I ever tackled this one again.

Hubby was flabbergasted to learn that there was a) wine and b) smoked paprika in the dish as all he could taste was nothing and chicken.  In fact, I have to agree with him about the smoked paprika, as it had completely disappeared - which is quite something for such a highly flavoured spice!  I could taste the wine, as could Son & heir.  The almonds were there in texture and very slightly in flavour, but in all honesty this was one very disappointing dish.

I've looked at what I could have done wrong and perhaps I put too much bread in, as it's difficult to know how much "a chunk" is.  I very definitely put more than "a large handful" of almonds in - as I emptied a 150g bag in the pan and added a handful from another bag, so the flavour of almonds should have been right up there.


The smoked paprika was from a new container, so it can't be that the paprika was old.  I've pondered on the wine being too acidic, but I used it in a dessert later in the week and it very definitely wasn't acidic then!

So I just don't know.


I served the chicken with plain white rice and a side salad - and I did enjoy the flavour (such as it was) of the sauce with the rice, but as I say, the whole thing was just "meh!".

Anyway, here's the recipe I followed, so that @LosBerchules can check it out with their chef - and maybe let me know where I went wrong!


CHICKEN IN ALMOND SAUCE (POLLO EN SALSA DE ALMENDRAS)  Serves 3

Ingredients :

250ml sunflower oil
1 chunk day-old crusty bread
a large handful of almonds, with skins on
3 chicken breasts, each cut into 3 portions
3 cloves garlic
1 glass white wine
water
half a tsp salt
1 tsp pimentón dulce (a.k.a. smoked paprika).

Method :

 

1.  Heat the oil in a large frying pan and add the bread and almonds.  Fry until the bread is golden brown, then remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.

2.  Fry the chicken pieces in the same pan until the skin becomes golden brown, turn the pieces over and fry the same on the other side.

3.  Now put the bread, almonds, 3 cloves of garlic, a glass of white wine and half a wine glass of water into a food processor and blend to form a fairly smooth paste.

4.  Put the chicken into a large lidded pan, along with the oil it was cooked in, the paste, the same amount of water as paste and the salt.

5.  Bring to this to a boil and add the pimentón dulce. Lower the heat and cook with the lid on for 20 minutes.

6.  Serve with potatoes or rice or salad.

.