Basque Style Chicken

You know the drill, you come home, it’s Tuesday or Wednesday night, and you’re knackered. The last thing you want to do is cook. Well, this basque style chicken is for you. It’s fast and easy. You put it on and let it cook for 30 min and you can do what you like for that time. I recommend a basque style power nap. 

When I talk about basque cuisine, I’m referring to the French side of the border. I’ve strong links to that area of France through family and dear friends. In fact, I’ll be there soon for a few days and I intend to eat all of the food. Basque food has some strong spanish influences and tomatoes and peppers can be found in most dishes. This tends to be combined with a healthy dose of piment d’espelette. Someday I’m going to write a whole post dedicated to it. That day will be soon as once I’ve been to France I’ll get home sick and will be wanting to write my memories down. Anyway, piment d’espelette is a medium hot French pepper grown in a small village of the Basque country. It’s hard enough to come buy but if you want to buy some you can find it here (please note this is an affiliate link which means if you buy some chili through this link I will get a small commission. This is not added to the price of the item so comes at no extra expense to you).

This basque style chicken goes well with long grain rice, boiled spuds or some good crusty bread. Please note that this recipe is not a traditional one. It is inspired by the famous Poulet Basquaise but I have taken too many liberties for it to be anything but a “basque style” dish. And that’s ok too. Not everything has to be traditional, not every recipe has to be followed. Anyway, my kitchen my rules! 

Ingredients for two

• 2 large chicken thighs
• 1 can of tinned tomatoes
• 2 large peppers
• 1 onion
• 2 glasses of white wine (whatever is going is just grand)
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 3 table spoons of piment d’espelette (you can use whatever chili you like, if you’ve no chili some paprika will do too, and if you’ve none of that a healthy dose of black pepper will see you right).

Method

• Heat up some cooking oil in a large pot
• Place the chicken thighs skin down and let them brown for 5 min.
• When they are golden on both sides, add your tomatoes and the sliced peppers and onions.
• Cook on low heat for 5 min then sprinkle with the chili. 
• Add your wine and cover the dish for 20 min (still on low heat)
• Check it and give it a shake every now and again to ensure it doesn’t burn.
• Grate your garlic and stir it through. Cover the pot and remove it for the dish so that the garlic is nearly cooked through.
• As per above, serve with rice, potatoes or good bread. 

Another easy mid week dinner option is this saffron chicken recipe.