Sometimes we all just want to come home after a long day and have a nice, comforting, indulgent meal that won’t necessarily break the bank. You know, a meal that can be shared, that’s warm and thick and creamy, and bursting with flavour with every bite.
And come on, succulent chicken which had been soaked in yogurt AND milk…with homemade stock made with roasted chicken bones, AND red wine AND verdelho… and coated in a rich, creamy, spiced-up sauce? Let’s all take a pause to appreciate this.
To ease our guilt a little, we replaced cream with milk, and used homemade stock, and trust us when we say, the result is no less delicious. To make it more guilt-free(ish), you can serve this with a delicious tangy salad (try some of our salad recipes here!). But we are all entitled to cheat days and what better to mop up all that incredible sauce than with some crusty bread, mash, polenta or rice. Slurp. #Somuchyum
Ingredients
- 500g chicken pieces [we used about 4-6 large drumsticks, but thigh pieces are also ideal]
- 1 cup milk
- 1 cup yogurt
- 2 tbsp salt
- For sauce
- 3/4 cup chicken stock
- 3/4 cup red wine
- 1/4 cup verdelho
- 1 cup milk + 1 tbsp additional milk
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 1 large garlic clove, diced
- 2 large red chillies, diced
- 2 tbsp chopped salami
- 1/4 lemon, juiced
- 1/4 - 1/2 cup grated spicy cheddar,
- 2 tsp cornstarch
- Salt, pepper to taste
- Cilantro, chopped for garnish
Instructions
- In a large bowl, mix the yogurt, milk and salt together well, and add in the chicken. Marinate the chicken pieces in this yogurt-milk bath for at least 4 hours to overnight. Shake off the marinade before cooking the chicken.
- Preheat your oven to 200°C. Meanwhile heat some oil in a deep saucepan and brown the chicken pieces on all sides.
- Transfer chicken to a baking pan and bake till almost cooked through, about 20 - 30 minutes. Make sure to turn the pieces over halfway through.
- As the chicken cooks, pour some more oil in the same pan and sauté the onions for a couple of minutes.
- Add garlic, chillies and salami and continue to cook for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until the onions are translucent and soft.
- Deglaze with chicken stock, verdelho and red wine. Make sure to scrape all that delicious bits off the base of the pan!
- Bring the mixture to a boil, before reducing the heat.
- Add the milk and mix it through. Watch the heat as you cook as you don't want the sauce to boil and the milk to curdle as you allow the sauce to reduce.
- Taste the sauce before adding salt and pepper to taste.
- In a separate boil, mix the cornstarch with the remaining 1 tablespoon milk, and stir until smooth. Add this to the sauce and stir through until the sauce begins to thicken.
- Once the chicken is done, add the pieces and any pan juices to the sauce along with the cheese.
- When the chicken is fully cooked, the cheese melted and incorporated into the sauce, add lemon juice to taste and adjust seasoning.
- Ensure all the pieces are well coated in the glossy sauce.
- Remove from heat, sprinkle chopped cilantro on top and serve warm.
Spike your stock
If, like us, you make your own stock, try adding the red wine (instead of white wine) and the verdelho in when doing so. That way, you don’t need to add them when making the sauce and cooking it down. When cooking the chicken, just increase the amount of stock you use when making the sauce to 1 full cup. After all, the leftover stock is just gold and can be used to bump up the flavour of any jus or soup you like. Boom!
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