How to bake: Spanish Chicken

I’ve never been to Spain.

I’d like to go, of course, but in the meantime I can make do with dishes like this.

This Spanish inspired chicken smells like I’d hope that chicken in Spain would smell. It looks that way too- all paprika red and a little like if it had been cooked over a fire somewhere where there is sun and olive trees and capsicums. Somewhere like the Basque maybe. Do they have olives and sun and capsicum there? It sounds like they would.

A one dish meal, this is warming and tasty and a great choice for a mid week dinner. The capsicum and onions are sweet and tender, and the sauce is perfect for dunking crusty bread into- if you aren’t gluten challenged, that is.

Anyways, here’s the recipe, but no photo today- we ate it before I could.

What you need:

• 4 waxy potatoes, thinly sliced. I leave the skins on.
• 2 red capsicum, de-seeded and cut into 2cm thick strips
• 1 tablespoon hot smoked paprika
• 1 tablespoon thyme leaves
• 4 cloves garlic, diced finely and then mashed a little with the back of your knife
• a little salt and pepper
• 2 long green chillies, halved, seeded and finely chopped
• 1-2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 4 chicken Maryland (leg and thigh joint). I only use free range chook, so if I can’t get Maryland, I use a mix of drumsticks and thigh fillets.
• 4 bay leaves
• 2 chorizo, sliced
• 60g black olives
• 2 red onions, sliced thinly
• 150ml white (or soft red) wine…I usually use red…
• 3 tomatoes, peeled, seeded and finely chopped
• ¼ cup flat leaf parsley leaves
• lemon wedges (to serve)- if you remember…

What you do with it:

• Pre-heat oven to 160C
• Cover the bottom of a large baking dish (that you’ve remembered to lightly grease) with a layer of potatoes and then capsicum.
• Mix together the paprika, salt, pepper, thyme, garlic, chilli and oil. Rub it over the chicken and place the chicken skin side up on top of the capsicum.
• Poke the bay leaves in around the chook, scatter with chorizo, olives and red onions. Pour over the wine, cover with foil and whack it in the oven for 45 minutes.
• Remove foil, increase the temperature to 200C, scatter the tomatoes around the chicken and cook for another 30 minutes- or until the chicken is cooked through and golden.
• Serve scattered with parsley and with lemon wedges