Chicken with Chorizo, Beans and Spinach

1tbsp olive oil
8 chicken pieces (4 drumsticks, 4 thighs)
175g fresh Spanish chorizo, cubed
1 onion, finely diced
2 large garlic cloves, crushed
1tsp mild chili powder
3 red Romano peppers, halved, seeded and cut into chunks
400g passata
2tbsp tomato puree
150ml chicken stock
1X400g and 1X200g can of butterbeans, drained
a small bunch of fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
200g bag of baby spinach leaves
3tbsp roughly chopped fresh coriander or parsley

Preheat to 190. Heat the olive oil in a heavy flame proof casserole, and brown the chicken pieces all over. Lift them out onto a plate and add the chorizo to the casserole. Cook the chorizo for 2-3 min, until the red oil starts to run, and then add the onion, garlic, and mild chili powder. Cook over a low heat for about 5 min till soft.
Now add the peppers and cook for another 2-3 min to soften them. Stir in the passata, tomato puree, stock, beans, thyme, and bay leaf. Cover and simmer for 10 min. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Return the chicken pieces and any juices to the casserole and bring to a simmer. Then cover and bake in the oven for about 25min. Remove from the oven and uncover. If the sauce looks too watery, place the casserole over a medium heat, and boil to reduce until nice and thick. Stir in the spinach and coriander or parsley. Allow the spinach to wilt into the stew. Remove the thyme and bay leaf from the casserole and serve.

This is the first recipe I’ve tried from Nick Nairn’s top 100 Chicken Recipes. The book looks promising, the recipes are quite varied, and many of them looked intriguing.

I started with this one because I was feeling uninspired, and I asked my husband to make a suggestion about what I should make for dinner. His suggestion was something with Chirizo in it. Good suggestion, not terribly specific, but it gave me something to go on, and it led me to this.

This was delicious. It had all of the deep flavor that you expect from a chorizo recipe, and it had beans and greens al in the same pot with the chicken and chorizo, so it was really a complete meal all by it’s self.

Do be careful of the passata that you choose though. There are a lot of them out there these days, and I accidentally got one that had basil mixed into it. It worked out ok, and my husband was totally over the moon for it, but I’m sure it would have been even a little better if I had paid more attention to the passata that I bought.

Serve it with crusty bread, and it will be a big winner.