Spanish Inspired Chicken Stew

Keeping with the theme of comforting winter food, I made a Spanish inspired chicken stew over the weekend. I had a whole chicken to use up and a roast (again!) just wasn't calling out to me. The stew was really quite lovely, lots of flavour and a good amount of sauce to be soaked up with crusty bread, buttery mash or good old steamed rice.

Putting it all together:

A whole medium chicken - cut into 8 pieces with the bones and skin left on
Chorizo (spicy) - cut into a small dice
1 medium white onion
3-4 large cloves of garlic - peeled and crushed
A good glug of red wine
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato paste
A large pinch of sugar
Olives - green or black
Finely chopped parsley from about 5-6 stalks

• Heat a little oil in a deep pan on medium-high heat. Lay the chicken pieces into the pan, skin side down. Cook the chicken in batches to ensure the pan is not over-crowded. Turn the pieces over once the skin has turned golden brown. Lift the chicken out once they are golden brown and set aside.
• Turning the heat down to a medium-low and add a little more oil. Cook the onion and garlic until the onions turn slightly translucent. Add the tomato paste and wine. Let the alcohol cook off before stirring in the tin of tomatoes and the sugar.
• Return the chicken to pan. Stir to coat the chicken with the sauce. If it looks a little dry, add about half a tomato tin full of water. Stir and cover. Let the chicken simmer for about half an hour.
• Stir in the olives and season. Cover and bubble for another 5 minutes.
• Stir in the chopped parsley. This does seem like quite a lot of parsley but I've used it as flavouring rather than garnish.
  
• Serve with crusty bread, potatoes or rice.
  

Warming Beef Stew

A nice stew to keep me warm and fuzzy inside as the winter winds howl outside. This was actually me trying to copy the zegni, a spiced beef stew, I had the Eritrean restaurant Asmara in Brixton a few weeks back. It ended up tasting wildly different but still good. There must be a secret ingredient that went into the zegni that made it terribly delicious :)

Beef Stew

800g braising or stewing beef
3 - 4 large white onions
5 tbsp tomato paste
2 cups of water
2 tsp chili powder - hot or mild

• Cut the beef into a very small dice, into about half centimeter cubes. Set aside.
  
• Mince the onions into a pulp (or just diced). Separate the solids and the liquid. Save both and set aside.
• Heat about 2 tbsp a pot on a medium high heat.
• Add the onions and cook until they are lightly translucent. Add the beef, tomato paste, chili powder and seasoning to the pot, mixing to combine with the onions. Cook the mixture until the tomato paste starts to stick slightly to the bottom of the pot.
  
• Add the water and reserved onion liquid. Stir and cover the pot. Leave it to bubble away happily for about 2 hours or until the beef is very tender and the sauce is rich and thick.*
• Served with hot steamed rice or mash potato.
  

*Or cheat as I did - use a pressure cooker to cut down the cooking time to about 40 minutes. Alternatively, use a slow cooker - putting it on in the morning and having a nice dinner waiting when you get home.