This recipe–inspired by one we ate at our friends and neighbours Julie and Richard–reminds me of meals round the kitchen table at home in the fifties. It’s simple and inexpensive and would possibly stretch to a second meal–important factors for my mother, with a husband and three children to feed and limited means.
Nevertheless she could be an adventurous cook. The dishes she tasted on the trips to Europe we enjoyed as a family with Dad’s concessionary rail tickets (he worked for the LMS–London Midland and Scotland), encouraged her to experiment in a modest way. Nothing very exotic about this–except its little kick from the chillies and the olives and peppers added at a later stage; comfort food really but none the worse for that.
She would would have celebrated her ninety sixth birthday this Saturday–so this is for her too.
Ma with a Morris dancer!--on 'is way to the 'obby 'oss festival perhaps..
100gm/4 oz bacon/pancetta–diced small
3 sticks or a heart of celery– chopped small
1 medium onion–chopped small
1 clove of garlic–chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 free range chicken–cut into 8-10 pieces and washed and dried
1 sparse tablespoon flour–I use chickpea
125ml/4fl oz white wine
125ml/4fl oz of stock–I use organic vegetable stock cubes
8oz/250gms tinned tomatoes–chopped roughly
3/4 sprigs of rosemary
3 small fresh red chillies
1 red pepper–cut in thin strips
a handful of juicy black olives–stoned if you have the time
a handful of parsley–chopped
set the oven at 160c/320f
- Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a large frying pan and sauté the onion, celery, bacon, and garlic gently for about 20 minutes allowing them to colour–concentrating the taste. Spoon the mixture into an oven-proof casserole.
- Season the chicken pieces and heat another spoonful of oil in the frying pan.
- Sauté them on a highish heat–turning them as they brown.
- Transfer them to the casserole.
- Tuck in the whole chillies and the rosemary sprigs and pour over the wine and the stock.
- Sprinkle over the flour and add the wine and the stock.
- Turn over the contents, cover the casserole and bring to a simmer on the stove.
- Transfer it to the oven and cook for 30 minutes.
- While this is in the oven, heat the third tablespoon of olive oil in the pan and gently sauté the strips of pepper.
- Add these to the casserole with the olives after 30 minutes and cook, uncovered, for a further 15 minutes in the oven.
- Sprinkle over the parsley and serve over brown basmati rice or quinoa
Robin Ellis 