Spanish Style Chicken & Chorizo Bake

Spanish style chicken & chorizo baked in a tomato & smoked paprika sauce. This is a very easy, tasty and rich casserole.

I had a bit of a sort out of my freezer yesterday and decided to make something out of some chicken breast fillets and some chorizo sausages I found lurking in one of the drawers.  This dish doesn’t follow any particular recipe although is loosely based on a cross between a Spanish dish and an Hungarian goulash!  Very homely and smoky rich with a very slight sweetness and spice from the hot smoked paprika, although not chilli hot.  I also added 4 rashers of smoked back bacon I needed to use up, cut up into lardon size pieces but this was purely to use them up and not essential.  You could garnish with some olives or some soured cream, chopped parsley etc.

This is a very easy and lazy (one dish to marinade and cook in with no browning of the meat first etc) main meal dish. I served it with some rice cooked by the absorption method in chicken stock and a knob of butter but could be served with pasta or whatever you fancied.

Spanish Style Chicken & Chorizo Bake (serves 4-6)

4 chicken breast fillets (or use mixture of thigh and breast or all thigh), cut into chunks

6 chorizo sausages (the uncooked variety), cut into chunks – I cut each into 4 pieces

1 large onion, peeled and cut into chunks

2 Red peppers (preferably the long sweet Romano variety), de-seeded and cut into chunks

4 cloves garlic, peeled, crushed and chopped

2 tsp smoked sweet paprika

2 tsp smoked hot paprika

1 tbs sherry vinegar (or use Balsamic)

1 tbs tomato ketchup

1 tbs olive oil (not extra virgin)

1 pint approx. tomato passata / chopped tomatoes (or use fresh chopped tomatoes for a fresher flavour)

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Mix everything except the passata and sea salt together in an oven-proof dish and let this marinate if you have time for an hour or so. 

2. Add the passata and salt and bake uncovered in a pre-heated moderate hot oven – 180C / gas mark 4 – for an hour and a quarter (a little longer is also fine if this suits you better). Stir the bake up occasionally as the edges of the peppers and onions that stick up a little will start to caramelise and blacken and this adds to the overall flavour.

3. Serve!