Kerry Brennan
Contributing Writer
After some intense wrangling as to where and with what I should start this blog, I have decided to settle on an old (but delicious!) favorite – my one pot pasta. This comforting and easy dish has been the centerpiece at many a birthday meal; but you need not wait for a special occasion to dive into it’s tantalizingly piquant flavors! As well as being wonderfully easy to make, it’s also incredibly versatile and can be adapted to meet all sorts of budgets and diets – something I discovered in Normandy this summer after one catastrophic encounter in a french delicatessen which led to me omitting the chorizo altogether.
For vegetarians,then, you can replace the chicken with tofu or quorn pieces and use vegetable rather than chicken stock. It can also be transformed into a coeliac-friendly meal with the use of gluten-free pasta, which is widely available but almost inedible when cold the next day, so you’d just have to eat it all in one sitting. Pity.
As the nickname suggests, this dish is cooked in one large heavy saucepan, preferably a le creuset but let’s be realistic. As long is it has a thick base and is big enough to fit a bag of pasta, and preferably big enough to fit in the oven, it’ll do. So with one working oven and a ring on the hob, a kettle and measuring jug for the stock, you’re good to go. It takes roughly 45 minutes from the initial choppy choppy of the onions to serving.
This recipe will feed between five and six people, though in my house of four, we have been known to get through the entire thing. You could halve the recipe to eat it yourself over two or three days; it wouldn’t last in the fridge any longer than three days and it cannot be frozen but it is fantastic cold for lunch the next day.
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons of olive oil
4 chicken breasts cut into pieces
3 medium red chillies, seeded and chopped*
4 cloves of garlic roughly chopped
1 large onion finely chopped
100 grams of chorizo sausage cut into chunks*
500 grams of penne pasta
1¾ pints of hot chicken stock
A handful of frozen peas
Grated Parmigiano Reggiano
Method:
– Preheat the oven to 200°C/Gas mark 6. Ensure the rack in the oven is low enough that the pot will fit in later.
– Heat the oil in the pot on the hob and add the chicken when hot and brown all over.
– Add the chillies, garlic and onion and mix for 1-2 minutes. Boil the kettle now for later.
– Chop the chorizo into thickly sliced CHUNKS, add into the pot and mix for 2-3 minutes until beginning to brown.
– Add the pasta, pour in the just boiled stock, stir and bring to the boil so it bubbles.
– Then reduce the heat and simmer without the lid for 10 minutes, or until most of the liquid has been absorbed.
– Add the peas, stir and put in the oven (or leave on the hob with a lid on) for 15-20 minutes to bake before tucking in.
