Cazuela de Pollo y Aceitunas

The following recipe makes use of fresh herbs, olive oil and olives as well as fresh peppers and other ingredients that give it a distinctly Mediterranean flavour. It can be served with couscous which wouldn’t be usually considered a particularly Spanish ingredient yet it is quite common in Granada where Moorish influence of cuisine is most common.

Indeed there are some fine Moorish restaurants in Granada that are well worth a visit if you ever visit that city.

Ingredients

Serves 4

• 8 skinless chicken legs
• approximately 3 tablespoons plain flour, to coat the chicken
• 4 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 100ml white wine
• 400g tin of peeled tomatoes
• 200ml of chicken stock
• 1 large red pepper, sliced
• 1 large green pepper, sliced
• 150g of pitted olives, halved
• 1 tablespoon of fresh thyme leaves, roughly chopped
• 1 tablespoon of fresh oregano leaves, roughly chopped
• salt and freshly ground black pepper for seasoning
• 240g of couscous (optional)

Cooking Method

Preheat your oven to 180ºC. Put the flour into a large bowl and season it with salt and black pepper. Toss the chicken in the flour, remove it and shake off excess flour.

Heat two tablespoons of the olive oil in a large casserole dish with a heavy base over a medium heat. Fry the chicken legs in two batches until they’re golden, it should take about 10 minutes per batch, then transfer them to a plate.

Heat the remaining oil in the dish and add the onion, garlic, thyme and oregano. If you don’t have fresh herbs then you could use about half a teaspoon of dried herbs, Cook gently with regular stirring for approximately 5 minutes until the onion starts to go translucent, Add the white wine, bring it to the boil and then reduce the heat and simmer for about 1 minute. Now stir in the tomato and the chicken stock.

At this point you need to return the chicken to the casserole dish, add the red and green peppers and bring the dish to the boil. Add a little salt and pepper, put the lid on the casserole dish, transfer it to the oven and bake for one hour.

Remove the lid, add the olives and return the dish (without its lid) to the oven for another 30 minutes or until the chicken is tender.

If you are serving this dish with couscous follow the cooking instructions on the pack

Serve with couscous or boiled potatoes.