Warming Spanish Chicken Casserole

Co-operative Electrical are currently running a competition giving bloggers the chance to win £750 to spend with coopelectricalshop.co.uk. I was pretty amazed at what a wide variety of things they sell, much more than household appliances and I would be spoilt for choice for what to pick if I won. although I have to admit a Macbook would be very high up my list. It would mean I could photograph things like this "tethered" to a computer allowing me to see the photos on a screen instead of just on my camera preview.

My recipe for the competition is inspired by my childhood summer holidays to Spain. It's both a recipe that warms with its ingredients and warms with the memories of sandy beaches and long summer days.

So first of all the ingredients...

Ingredients :

2 tablespoons of olive oil
A knob of butter
6 boneless and skinless chicken thighs
2 onions
400g carrots
4 celery sticks
1 tin of Canneleni beans (rinsed)
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
3 tablespoons of tomato puree
1/2 pint of chicken stock
4 cloves of garlic
A pinch of Cayenne pepper
100g of chorizo (skin removed)
A splash of red wine (optional)

Directions...

Heat the olive oil in a large casserole dish, when very hot add the chicken thighs and brown on both sides. Remove the thighs from the caserole and add a knob of butter, add chopped onions and allow to fry for a couple of minutes.

Add chopped celery, carrots and chorizo and cook for 5 minutes. Finally add remaining ingredients and return chicken thighs to the dish, bring to the boil and turn down to a low heat. Allow to simmer for 30 minutes covered.

I haven't tried this in a slow cooker yet, but I would imagine it would work very well. Serve with crusty bread and a hearty glass of wine.

PS - If you want to see the less glamorous side of putting this blog post together. There is a photo here of me shooting the pics using our floor samples on our bedroom floor!