Meal Nineteen - Spicy Chicken and Rice

The second dish of the night was also chicken - sorry Quig.

As I've mentioned before, a lot of my dishes will follow on if I have an overstock of ingredients.

This is the first time I got to use my paella pan, of which Sam bought me for Christmas.

It definitely makes a difference, as there is a lot of chicken to brown off!

The flavours and smells from this dish are amazing and aside from the little taster I had, I can't wait to tuck into this for lunch tomorrow.

Ingredients:

1.5kg chicken thighs, cut into 1 inch pieces

1 red, 1 yellow and 1 yellow pepper, deseeded and quartered

2 green chillies, deseeded and finely diced

450g tomatoes, skinned and chopped

1 onion, finely diced

2 tbsp vegetable oil

salt and cayenne pepper

1 tsp paprika

150g long grain rice

450ml vegetable stock

1 tsp fresh thyme

100g green olices, stoned and halved

few drops of Tabasco sauce

2 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a large frying pan (or paella pan). Season the chicken with the cayenne pepper and salt, add to the pan and fry for 8-10 minutes, turning it brown all over. Remove the chicken with a slotted spoon. 

2. Add the peppers and onion and fry for 5 minutes until browned, then again remove from the pan with a slotted spoon.

3. Add the chillies, rice and paprika, stirring for 1 minutes until the rice is coated with the excess oil.

4. Add the hot vegetable stock and the cook the rice over a low heat for approximately 10 minutes. (You may have to add a touch of water if the rice begins to stick during this time. I had this problem, but I think the heat wasn't low enough!)

5. Return the peppers, onion and chicken to the pan. Add the thyme, tomatoes then cover and simmer for 20 minutes. (Use some foil if the pan is too big.)

6. Add the olives and stir into the pan. Add the tabasco sauce then taste and season if necessary.

Sprinkle with parsley and then serve.