Basque Chicken

Saturday night brought myself and my Hubby down to my parents house, on the pretext of keeping my Mother company whilst my Father is in Hong Kong, but really so that we could watch the Rugby Lions lose in the 2nd test match and therefore the series - boo ;(.

To compensate I cooked one of my most favourite dishes ever - Delia Smiths' Basque Chicken (along with drinking a fair bit of pink fizz and giggling like schoolgirls with my Mum).

Basque Chicken

Serves 4

8 pieces of Chicken - skin on and bone in

Approx a 12cm length of Chorizo cut into 5mm chunks

1 large onion - cut in to chunky slices

2 large red peppers cut into chunky slices

1/2 jar of sun dried tomatoes, roughly chopped

2 cloves of garlic - chopped

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tbsp Tomato Puree

1 cup of Basmati Rice

Salt & Pepper

1 1/2 glasses of White Wine

300ml Chicken or Vegetable Stock

1 Large orange cut into 8 slices

Handful of pitted black olives (not added to this dish in deference to Ma's dislike)

Olive oil

Heat the oil in a large shallow paella pan, cook the chicken skin side down until golden and crisp, turn and seal the other side.

Remove from the pan and put to one side. In the pan then add the onions, garlic, chorizo and peppers, gently fry for a few minutes.

Pour in the Rice and make sure it is completely coated in the oil.

Then add the wine to deglaze the bottom of the pan, pour on the stock, sun dried tomatoes and tomato puree, season and mix.

Place the chicken and orange pieces back on top and olives. sprinkle over a pinch or two of mixed herbs - I used Oregano and Marjoram.

Cover in foil and leave to simmer for 50 minutes, occasionally stirring to avoid the rice sticking on the bottom, add more stock or wine if it gets too dry.