Chorizo Butterbeans

Chorizo Butter beans

This is a warm and tasty dish that is great soul warming food with plenty of flavour.

Ingredients

One Chorizo
2 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons of olive oil
3 sticks of celery
one red pepper
6 cherry tomatoes
a small handfull of French beans
sea salt
tin of butter beans
sprig of fresh thyme

Method

Place the olive oil and chopped garlic in a saucepan and gently heat from cold. This should soften the garlic and it is important to start adding the celery before the garlic starts to fry, do so in a manner that keeps the pan from getting too hot.

After a minute or so add the chorizo, roughly chopped into one pound coin size bits. The better the chorizo the better the dish - I have used the cheapest in the supermarket and found it to be sadly lacking in flavour or good texture.

Let the paprika and fat leach out of the chorizo before adding the thyme, tomatoes (halved) and red pepper (roughly chopped). After the pan has come back up to the heat add the tin of butter beans (drained and rinsed in cold water.

Make sure everything gets a good coating of oil and heats through. Add the French beans, salt and some more chopped thyme about a minute before serving.

This went brilliantly with the Foccacia that was a wonderful way of mopping up the flavoursome juices.

Chorizo Roast Chicken

Chorizo Roast Chicken

A roast Chicken is a great meal. If you are sensible enough you can get 3 meals for 2 from a medium size bird. Recently in the British media there has been a big push to promote the use of organically reared birds rather than use of battery chickens. Personally I support this movement, the taste is superior and it is a better life for the bird.

This recipe uses a trick that I often use to add flavour and keep the breast moist. I insert the sliced chorizo between the skin and the breast. The fats from the chorizo baste the breast and the paprika-y spicey flavour permeates into the meat.

Ingredients

One organic chicken
8 slices of chorizo sausage
6 small dried red chillies
salt & pepper
olive oil

Method

Insert the chorizo slices under the skin of the chicken.
Drizzle the bird with olive oil.
Season with salt and pepper.
Scatter the dried chillies over the bird.
Cover with foil and roast in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees C for about an hour and a half. For the last half hour remove the foil so that the skin crisps. Check the bird is cooked by making sure the juices run clear.

Serve with whatever you like. Either traditional Sunday roast style (roast potatoes and a couple of veg)or perhaps with some rice and roasted peppers.