Thursday, October 11, 2007

Rick Bayless's Chicken a la veracruzana

Tonight's dinner came from Rick Bayliss's Mexican Everyday. It's incredibly simple and very delicious, and I've just added it to our shortlist of fallback recipes for feeding a bunch of people.

The original recipe calls for chicken thigh and leg quarters, but they didn't have these in the store, so I used 8 boned skinless chicken thighs instead. I didn't test it, but I'd probably advise against using chicken breasts; I think the thighs will hold up better to the long cooking time.

Chicken a la veracruzana
Serves 6
  • 4 medium (about 1 pound) red-skin boiling or Yukon Gold potatoes, each cut into 6 wedges (I used Yukon Gold. They cooked up meltingly tender, but completely held their shape.)
  • 6 chicken leg-and-thigh quarters, skin pulled off, or 8 boneless skinless chicken thighs
  • 28-ounce can diced tomatoes in juice (hello, Muir Glen organic fire-roasted toms, yum yum)
  • 4-6 canned pickled jalapenos, stemmed, seeded, and cut into strips
    3 garlic cloves, chopped or pressed
  • 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/8 teaspooon dried thyme
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • Salt
  • 1/4 to 1/2 cup coarsely chopped green olives (manzanillas are traditional)
  • 1/4 cup roughly chopped flat-leafed parsley

Spread the spuds over the bottom of a slow cooker. Top with the chicken. In a medium bowl, mix tomatoes, jalapenos, garlic, W sauce, thyme, cloves, cinnamon and 2 teaspoons salt. It will smell divine in an almost Moroccan way. Pour evenly over the chicken. Cook on high for 6 hours (our cooker has only one setting, and I let it go for 8 hours. Even less would work fine; the chicken was almost beyond tender).

Plate chicken and potatoes, leaving the sauce behind. Reduce a bit if necessary (ours was a little more watery than I'd like). Stir in the olives and parsley; add more salt if necessary. Next time I think I'd serve it all on a platter to hand around at the table, but it worked fine on separate plates too.

We ate brown basmati rice and fresh cornbread with this. I'd add a green salad next time, and do without the rice. Crazy easy and so good, this is definitely being added to the rotation.

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