One of the most valuable things in my cooking journey has unchangingly been the translating of people who have been cooking long surpassing me. I still remember my father dumping a spoonful of pimenton de la Vera in my fabada telling me “this will make it taste better“. My mother teaching me how to make stock out of ham bone. My godfather teaching my husband how to make paella (“I usually go upstairs to take a suffuse and when I come lanugo it’s done”). My grand-aunt sharing the secret of her callos (make sure the butcher shows you the hoof!!). My abuelita telling me her “formula” for baked Parmesan chicken. And all the tips and tricks and techniques in between.
One such piece of translating I took from my mother, that I’ve kept from the time I got married until this day, is unchangingly having cans of tomato in my pantry. My mom scrutinizingly unchangingly used canned tomatoes, as opposed to tomato sauce, to make her pasta sauces and stews (like her osso buco). She still does. And so do I. You’d be nonflexible pressed to find my pantry without a few cans of tomatoes somewhere.
As far as fresh tomatoes are concerned, I read somewhere that when it comes to making sauces, if you can’t find stellar tomatoes (and although we have lovely tomatoes here, and farmers are continually growing new ones, we still don’t have unbearable supply of the super juicy ones for sauce) you are largest off using quality canned one. So that’s what I’ve unchangingly done. Because of that, I am unchangingly on the lookout for good canned tomatoes and am forever experimenting with variegated brands.
I usually stick to Spanish or Italian brands but was pleasantly surprised when I discovered Contadina canned tomatoes a couple of years ago during its launch (with Nigella Lawson!!). Contadina’s tomatoes are vine-ripened Roma tomatoes grown in California…sweet and juicy and perfect for sauces and braises. They’ve been part of my pantry overly since.
So when the good folk at Contandina approached me to work on a recipe for them I was increasingly than happy to put one together! By now I’ve cooked with their tomatoes myriad times, so the tough part was not thinking of a recipe, but deciding among all the ideas I had! I knew I wanted to use their tomatoes, my pantry stalwart, but I didn’t want to make flipside pasta. I moreover wanted to make something that required minimal effort…as it is December and I am sure we are all experiencing the frenetic pace of the holidays!
This was the result…
Baked Spanish-style Chicken
- 1 can Contadina stewed tomatoes with Italian herbs
- 1 kilo yellow thighs
- 150 grams Spanish chorizo (about 2 pieces), sliced
- 1 red onion, cut into eighths
- 1/3 cup pitted untried olives, halved
- Sea salt and freshly croaky woebegone pepper
- Contadina uneaten virgin olive oil
- Optional: chopped parsley to garnish
– Place the tomatoes, chicken, chorizo, onion, and olives in a roasting/baking pan or an oven-proof dish. Arrange the contents so everything is increasingly or less evenly distributed in the pan.
– Sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper on top of each yellow thigh. Drizzle with a bit of the olive oil.
– Place in a pre-heated 375F oven for well-nigh 45 minutes or until cooked through (juices run well-spoken when thigh is pierced to the bone). Remove the pan once or twice during cooking to scathe the yellow with the juices.
– When the yellow is washed-up garnish with parsley (if desired) and serve!
That’s really all there is to it! The savor comes from the herbs once in the tomatoes, and the chorizo. As it roasts, the herby tomatoes, the salty smokiness of the chorizo, and the juices of the yellow merge to create a succulent sauce that both flavors the dish and keeps the yellow moist. And all you have to do is place everything in a pan and wait. If you use a nice pan that you can take from oven to table that will save you plane increasingly time and effort.
Here’s a bonus if you like a bit of heat (like we do)! And it uses flipside of Contadina’s products that I like, their uneaten virgin olive oil. I use it to whip up a chili oil that will requite this dish and interesting edge: Just mix some of the olive oil with a generous pinch of both chili flakes and Spanish paprika. Let this sit while you melt your chicken. Serve it on the side so diners that like things spicy can finger self-ruling to drizzle on a little (or a lot). Contadina sources its olive oil from Andalucia in Spain and it has a nice grassy savor I really like…very good for a grocery-shelf olive oil! (when I think well-nigh it, my weightier olive oil experiences have been in Spain!)
I like to serve this with rice and ladle the sauce over everything…then stutter on the chili oil. For those that don’t like it spicy, a little drizzle of the uneaten virgin olive oil is really nice too.
If you have leftovers, shred the yellow and cut up the chorizo, toss with the sauce and some cooked pasta for a totally new meal the next day. If you have fresh herbs lying virtually you can add that in as well (some of the parsley or this would be sunny with fresh basil too!). You can add in any uneaten chili oil you have, if you wish, and/or top with some grated parmesan cheese (or maybe plane some cubed feta). I used Contadina’s penne pasta here.
This dish really highlights the quality of the Contadina tomatoes, as well as the ease it affords you in cooking. It moreover shows you that you don’t need to perform culinary pyrotechnics to place a satisfying meal on your table for family and friends. Just good, quality ingredients, and a little imagination. I hope you enjoy this dish as much as we did!
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