Latin American Chicken - frisky, fruity and delicious

Well, colour me surprised and extremely impressed by this recipe.  Some recipes you can look at and immediately imagine the flavours, know how it is likely to look, what consistency the sauce will be etc. This one, I had a good idea of the flavours but I couldn't, for the life of me, think what sort of consistency it would turn out to be and whether the flavours would be intense or somewhat wishy-washy.  You see, I have something of a past history with wishy-washy tomato based chicken dishes.  *coughs behind hand*  Moving on ....

I don't remember finding this recipe, but it was there in my "new recipes" folder on my computer so I obviously spotted it at some point and saved it for future reference.  As you do.  I have so many recipes saved that I have had to categorise them to within an inch of their lives in order to keep control.  Without the blessed categories, there'd be recipes romping unchecked everywhere as soon as I got past the opening window, I'm sure of it.  Anyway, there it was (here, if you're curious) and originally intended to be a recipe for the slow cooker.

Now although - as you know - I do have a slow cooker, in this instance it wouldn't have been a lot of use as I was cooking for just the two of us and the ingredients would have got lost in my big old crockpot.  Whatever you can cook in a slow cooker can be cooked in an oven, so that's where it ended up and (ssssshhh, don't tell anyone) but I think it may have been all the better for it, too.

As a matter of necessity, I tweaked the recipe remorselessly.  Things such as leaf coriander went out of the window, in favour of ground coriander, as my chaps really don't like leaf coriander.  I didn't have any allspice, so in went a combination of cinnamon, mace and a bit more ground coriander for luck.  For all that I did have a can of black beans, it would have made way too much so I swapped them out for a small can of red kidney beans and crossed my fingers.

The bit I was having trouble with, was knowing quite how the sauce would turn out - and indeed, if I would wind up with any sauce at all.  You see, apart from a small amount of chicken stock and a much larger amount of spicy salsa (for which, I used Asda's salsa in a jar) plus any juice that might leach out from the red pepper and sweet potatoes, there wasn't any identifiable "sauce" as such.  Now, cooked in a slow cooker, this wouldn't be such an issue as they do tend to water their contents down through returning the steam back into the pot as condensation.  I decided the best thing was to prevent the loss of steam created during the cooking process and covered the casserole dish with a tight sheet of silver foil under the lid.  Oh and crossed my fingers.  Essential bit of cooking technology, that.  Well hurrah for crossed fingers, because it worked!

The end result had just enough sauce to keep the contents nicely moistened, the chicken soft and tender and with the final addition of a squeeze of lime juice, was sooooo blinking delicious!  Plus, of course, the added benefit that other than a bit of chicken frying the cooking was a simple matter of heating everything up in the chicken pan, pouring it into the casserole dish and waving goodbye to it for an hour and a half.  Take fifteen minutes of that time to cook some rice and ~back of hand to forehead~ oh the stress!  SLAVING over a hot stove (a.k.a. reading my book in the living room) whilst the dinner cooked.  Perfect.

Do, by all means, feel free to cook the original incarnation of this recipe if it appeals, but I have noted down my version of it below, which is of course a whole lot better.  *wink*  If you prefer chicken thighs, you'll possibly need to increase the cooking time by a half hour or so, depending on how big and muscly your chicken is.

LATIN AMERICAN CHICKEN   (serves 2)

Ingredients :

2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
sea salt
ground black pepper
1 tsp plus 1 tsp ground coriander
2-3 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into bite sized chunks
1 red pepper, de-seeded and cut into strips
1 large clove of garlic, sliced finely
1 200g tin of red kidney beans, drained
200ml chicken stock (made with 1 stock cube or 1 tsp stock powder)
200g spicy salsa from a jar
half a tsp of ground cumin
half a tsp of ground cinnamon
half a tsp of ground mace
a pinch of dried red chilli flakes (to taste)
a small bunch of fresh parsley, chopped, for garnish
lime wedges, for garnish.

Method :

To begin with, pre-heat your oven to 180degC/350degF/gas 4.

Then, take each chicken breast and cut it in half horizontally so that you end up with two much thinner pieces of chicken for each breast.  This will ensure the chicken cooks evenly.

Heat the rapeseed oil in a large frying pan over a moderate/high heat and lay each piece of chicken inside.  Quickly sprinkle with half of one of the tsp of ground coriander and a pinch of sea salt & black pepper, turn the chicken and repeat for the other side.  Fry the chicken until golden on the one side, then turn it over and complete the frying on the other side.  If the chicken isn't quite cooked through it doesn't matter as it will complete cooking in the oven.  Once golden on both sides, remove the chicken to a lidded casserole dish and reserve.

Tip the sweet potatoes, red pepper and garlic into the frying pan - add a little more rapeseed oil if necessary - and fry until the garlic is golden, the potatoes have coloured in places and the red pepper has begun to soften - around 5-10 minutes.

Add the red kidney beans, stock, salsa, remaining ground coriander, cumin, cinnamon, mace and chilli flakes and stir through.  Bring to a boil and add a little more water if necessary, as it can evaporate quite quickly.  Pour the contents into the casserole dish and stir through.

Cover the casserole dish with a tight fitting layer of silver foil and the casserole lid and place into the middle of your oven for 1.5 hours.  I would advise checking the liquid level after an hour, just in case your sealing hasn't quite worked!  If necessary, top up with a little water or chicken stock.

I served mine with basmati rice that had been cooked in vegetable stock, with a few added peas and a very naughty knob of butter melted through.  Sprinkle the chopped parsley over the top and add a couple of lime wedges for squeezing.  Scrummy!

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