Life can be simple: Chicken with Leeks and Lemon

Sunday is the day we all rest or at least most of us. It's usually the time for family. So alot of people either eat out together to enjoy more family time and to avoid spending hours in the kitchen cooking just so they can rest. What about you? What did you do today?

For us, we usually prefer to eat at home to avoid crowds on weekends and it is also much healthier. Today, I decided to make one of Nigel Slater's all-time favourites for a good and easy supper. That would definitely be a wise choice for making dinner so that dinner will be a one-dish meal that makes it easier for prepping, washing and cleaning up. I love one-dish meals!!

This recipe is from Nigel Slater's Tender: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch. This book contains more than 400 recipes and extensive gardening notes and is great as a visual guide for growing and cooking vegetables from your own garden. If you have a vegetable in your garden that you don't know what to cook with, check out Nigel's book mentioned above.

You would note that this recipe serves about 8. See my modifications or comments in blue.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil

8 chicken thighs (I used 5 chicken thighs and removed the fats in between the thighs)

4 medium-sized leeks (I used 2 leeks)

2 carrots, sliced lengthways

1 packet sliced wild mushrooms

a glass of dry vermouth like Noilly Prat (I used my favourite Riesling)

zest and juice of a lemon

500ml chicken stock (I used about 300ml chicken stock and added 200ml water)

~~a small bunch of parsley~~ I used spring onions

a splash of worcestershire sauce

2 bay leaves

Method:

In a large casserole, warm the olive over moderate heat, add the chicken thighs, skin side down and cook until pale gold in colour.
Wash the leeks thoroughly, shake them dry, then cut them into pieces the length of a wine cork.
Lift the chicken out of the pan, then add the carrots and cooked till they are soft. then add the wild mushrooms and leeks.
Cover and let ~~them~~ the vegetables and mushrooms cook, gently and at a low heat, until they are soft ~~but relatively uncoloured~~. Whatever happens, ~~they~~ the leeks should not brown.
Once they start to soften, add the ~~vermouth~~ riesling, the zest and juice of the lemon and the chicken stock.
Once the liquid comes to a boil, return the chicken pieces and its juices to the casserole, season with salt and pepper, cover and simmer for about 20 minutes or so.
Taste the sauce for seasoning and then stir in chopped ~~parsley~~ spring onions.

I love this one-dish meal as it is. If you feel there isn't carbo and you needed some, you can eat it with steamed rice or some baked potatoes. I love the acidity of the lemon in this stew, it gives a nice sourish taste to the gravy. Also, the sweetness of the carrots and leeks add a nice and sweet taste to this stew. Overall, you can savour hints of the riesling but yet it doesn't overpower the taste of the ingredients in this chicken stew. I love this nice and heartwarming stew. You bet! I slurped up every morsel of this stew as well as the gravy. Yummilicious!!