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Winner Cocina Española: Chicken in Orange Sauce with Anchovies and Olives

Introduction: Well I started off today wondering about duck in orange sauce. But couldn't get a duck. So I googled "chicken in orange sauce" and found a bunch of Asian recipes and a few French and a few Spanish. The French and Spanish looked good for today, hmmmm. This is what I amalgamated from all that. It looks simple but took me a few hours, including the shopping.

Ingredients:

  • • Ten chicken pieces (e.g. cut up two free range chickens)
  • • Ten anchovies
  • • Six cloves garlic
  • • Large onion
  • • Four rashers bacon
  • • Two tablespoons smoky paprika
  • • One carrot
  • • One stick celery
  • • Forty small button mushrooms. Or larger mushrooms cut to forty pieces.
  • • Two navel oranges as: One cup orange juice & four teaspoons grated outer zest
  • • Four cups chicken stock. Two for baking & two for gravy
  • • One cup dry sherry
  • • One large navel orange cut into forty pieces
  • • One handful chopped flat-leaf parsley
  • • Olive oil
  • • Freshly ground sea salt and black pepper
  • • Four handsfull chopped black Spanish olives (150 gm)
  • • Handful of chopped fresh basil

Dice and combine together the celery, bacon, onion and carrot. Chop garlic finely and add to the mix. Sprinke the smoky paprika and mix through. Heat a solid frying pan and stir fry the mix.

Transfer contents of frying pan to a saucepan. Add the sherry, two cups of chicken stock, orange juice, zest and basil. Boil for ten minutes.

Preheat oven to low fan-force 180C.

Cut excess skin & fat off the chicken pieces. Then braise the chicken pieces in a splodge of olive oil in a very hot frying pan, both sides until browned, in convenient batches.

Transfer the braised chicken pieces to a wide baking dish and lay an anchovy across the top of each piece of chicken. Season with freshly ground sea salt and black pepper.

Braise the forty small button mushrooms in a hot, dry frying pan. Transfer them to the baking dish, into the interstices between the chicken pieces.

Sprinkle chopped olives across the chicken and mushrooms. Pour the sauce containing the stir fried bacon and vegetables across the preparation.

Bake for 90 minutes @ 180C

Remove the chicken pieces to a serving dish and return to low oven to keep warm.

Transfer the considerable residue from the baking dish to a saucepan. Add two cups chicken stock and boil lightly for a few minutes. Mix plain flour in a little cold water and drizzle and stir into the sauce mixture, cooking and adding as necessary to produce a gravy-like consistency.

Add forty pieces of diced orange. Boil two minutes. Pour the thickened sauce over the chicken pieces in the hot serving dish and serve.

Accompaniments:

  • • Greek salad including chopped anchovies
  • • Warmed asparagus
  • • Baby potatoes par boiled then braised in butter, diced bacon and garlic then sprinkled with cut chives and a little grated parmesan
  • • Spanish Rosé wine

Life can be soooo good

Cooking Rox

Be well

Chef John 16 November 2007