Recipe number four: Spanish-style chicken.

This was from a little while ago, but I wanted to catch up, and not lose track of the new recipes I'm trying as part of my New Year's challenge. I think I cut this out of a magazine, possibly one from a supermarket - I'm not sure. I have a blank book that I paste random recipes into, and this is just one of those. I made a couple of amendments, and I've also converted the metric to normal using my favorite online converstion site (which even has conversions for butter, which is just amazing!)

Spanish-style chicken

Serves 6

Whole chicken, about 1.6kg/3.5 lbs

50g/3.5 TB butter, softened

1/2 TB paprika

Large pinch saffron

6 tomatoes, quartered

4 chorizo sausages, skinned and sliced (this is a bit flexible - it says four, I bought two packages - each package had one chorizo that was maybe a foot long, but curved around in a horseshoe shape, maybe an inch in diameter? that's a really rough memory!)

2 cans butter beans, drained

6 garlic cloves, peeled

fresh flat leaf parsley (I think I forgot this when I did it)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees

2. Mix paprika and saffron into the butter with salt and pepper and rub all over the chicken skin (it seems like a lot of butter at this point, but it is worth it!). Place chicken in a roasting pan and put in the oven for 1 hour and 25 minutes (for a 1.6kg bird - adjust accordingly depending on size of chicken)

3. About 40 minutes before the chicken is meant to be done (so for a 1.6kg bird, this is about 45 minutes into the cooking time), take the chicken out of the pan and set aside, while you add the tomatoes, chorizo, butter beans and garlic cloves to the roasting pan. Place the chicken on top and baste well.

4. Continue to roast for the remaining time, basting occasionally.

5. At the end of the cooking time and when the chicken is finished, remove from the oven and let the chicken rest for about 10 minutes. Mash the tomatoes slightly into the sauce. Sprinkle with parsley (if using). Carve the chicken and serve with the chorizo-bean-tomato sauce.

It's pretty straightforward, and most of the time involved is the roasting time for the chicken. I can see how it can be adapted to make it even easier - using chicken breasts, for example, but I guess you'd just have to make sure that the tomatoes and chorizo had time to cook. The chorizo goes all crunchy and it's just really nice with the beans and tomatoes. It didn't seem too fatty to me, but it is pretty rich!

Taste scores

Mark: 7 (Mark says it was tasty but there are other things he likes better)

Jessica:  8

Ease of preparation: 8 (having to skin the chorizo is the only thing that keeps this from scoring a ten - I don't know if you could get away with not skinning at all...) 

Do it again? Yes

Recommend? I think so - if it isn't too rich for people...