I was originally planning on doing a turkey sausage and barley stew for dinner the other night, but then I found a whole chicken on sale. I had intended to cut it up and freeze it for later use. But I kind of ran out of time. And decided that rather than thawing out the sausages, making dinner with them, and then breaking down and freezing the chicken, may be it just made more sense to eat the chicken right away and save the sausages for another time. So, I ended up going with this chicken stew, which not only used up the chicken, but also the bell peppers that we had in the fridge going begging.

Spanish Chicken Stew

Slightly adapted from Dish of the Day by Kate McMillan

Ingredients

• 1 (1.5-2kg) chicken, cut into 8 pieces
• 2 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1 tsp. black peppercorns, ground
• 1 Tbsp. butter, olive oil, or schmaltz
• 2-3 red or yellow bell peppers, finely chopped
• 1 onion, halved and sliced
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 small (~400mL) tin diced tomatoes
• 2 tsp. smoked paprika
• 1 tsp. hot paprika
• ~2 c. cooked chickpeas
• 3/4 c. pitted green olives¹
• 3/4 c. sliced almonds, toasted and divided

Directions

1. Season the chicken with the salt and pepper.
2. Heat the fat over medium-high heat.
3. Place the chicken pieces, skin-side-down, in the pot and sear until crispy. Flip and sear briefly on the other side. Transfer to a plate.
4. Pour off all but 1 Tbsp. of fat from the pot.
5. Return to medium heat and add the onion and bell pepper. Cook until softened.
6. Add the garlic and cook for another minute or two.
7. Add the tomato and both kinds of paprika and stir to combine.
8. Nestle the chicken pieces into the sauce, skin-side-up.
9. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until chicken is cooked through (30-40 minutes).
10. Uncover and add chickpeas, olives, and 1/2 c. of the toasted almonds. Simmer for 10 minutes.
11. Sprinkle with remaining almonds and serve.

---

¹ I didn't have enough green olives on hand for this, so I ended up using a mix of green and kalamata. I do think the green olives went with the dish slightly better, but they were both good. ^Back