Old School Tuscan Chicken One Pot

It has been a while since I’ve put anything up on here as I’ve been busy searching and applying for jobs, plus its now only 6 1/2 weeks until my wedding so I’m a busy bee indeed! Today I’ve been chilling at home, working on some stuff for a job interview and so, I decided to cook something new for dinner. Knowing I had chicken thighs in the freezer and not much else, I delved into my retro chicken cookbook: a practical encyclopaedia of chicken cooking.

It’s a charity shop classic with such gems as ‘Chicken Pea & Mint’ soup and ‘Chicken with Apricot & Pecan Baskets’. Fear not, amid the random 80’s combinations, are some interesting and tasty chicken recipes! I choose the Tuscan Chicken and it was made pretty much to the book aside from one substitution of cannellini beans for butter beans.

Ingredients serves 4

• 8 chicken thighs, skinned
• 5ml/1 tsp olive oil
• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
• 2 red peppers, seeded and sliced I used 1 green, 1 red for colour. After all, as my mum says, you eat with your eyes first!
• 300ml/ 1/2 pint passata
• 150ml/1/4 pint white wine I used a zingy sauvignon blanc
• Large sprig of oregano (or 1 tsp of dried if you don’t have fresh)
• 400g can of cannellini beans – drained I used butter beans as that’s all I had in
• 45ml/ 3 tbsp breadcrumbs
• Salt and pepper to season.

Method:

• Fry the chicken in the oil in a non-stick or heavy pan (I used my casserole dish) until golden brown. Remove from pan and leave to one side.
• Add onion and peppers to the pan and gently fry until soft but not browned. Add garlic and stir for a few mins at this point.
• Next, add the chicken, passata, wine & oregano (torn up). Season and bring to the boil. Once boiling, add the lid and turn the heat right down.
• Simmer, stirring occasionally for 30-35 mins until the chicken is cooked through,
• Add the beans and let them warm through for 5 mins.
• Sprinkle the breadcrumbs all over and stick under the grill for 5 mins or until golden!
• Serve with crusty bread or rice.

The aroma coming from the grill was fantastic and the breadcrumbs really added to the dish. As you can see from my pictures, my breadcrumbs we’re a little ‘rustic’ shall we say but they worked just as well as a more professional breadcrumb! This dish took around an hour all in to make (including prep and cooking times) but not very labour intensive as, for a lot of the time you can just leave it.

Overall, tasty and will definitely make again this Tuscan chicken dish in the future. Once again, my charity shop retro cookbooks have come up trumps! 🙂

Tuscan Chicken with rice and a steamed up camera lens..(optional).