Casa Lucio’s chicken with garlic
Casa Lucio is a Madrid institution. The great andthe good dine here – everyone from the royal family to Spanish movie stars andfootballers – and well heeled Madrileños, too. It isn’t cheap but the food issimple, old-fashioned and good.This is not a granddish at all, but one of the quickest and most satisfying in the book. You haveto pay attention to it while you’re cooking – turning the chicken and alteringthe heat from time to time – but it doesn’t take great skill. I finish the dishwith dry sherry rather than white wine and leave the saffron as optional (it’sa very good recipe without it).Lots of differentaccompaniments work here. Serve it with sautéed or olive oil-roast potatoes anda green salad; roast tomatoes and rice cooked with saffron; or baby spinachleaves and rice tossed with chunks of fried chorizo.You do need either ameat cleaver or a heavy knife to chop the chicken thighs. Frying chicken thighsthat are cut into pieces, but retain the bone, is common in Spanish cooking.
Ingrediënten
- 8 skinless bone-in chicken thighs
- salt and pepper
- 1 bulb of garlic plus 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- olive oil
- 1 tsp sherry vinegar
- 4 tbsp dry sherry
- a few saffron strands optional
- handful of chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves optional
Instructies
- Using a meat cleaver or a good heavy knife, cut the thighs into 5cm (2in) pieces, then check to make sure there aren’t any little splinters of bone left.
- Sprinkle with salt and leave for 10 minutes.
- Separate the cloves in the bulb of garlic but don’t peel them.
- Bash each one with the side of a broad-bladed knife to slightly crush.
- Heat about 1cm (½in) of olive oil in a large frying pan until very hot.
- Add the chicken and whole garlic cloves and cook over a high heat, shaking and moving the pieces around for about four minutes until they have a good colour, then reduce the heat a little and continue to cook, turning the chicken, for about another 10 minutes, or until cooked through.
- Drain in a large sieve, getting rid of the oil.
- Add the chopped garlic, vinegar, sherry, saffron (if using) and some salt and pepper to the pan.
- Bring to the boil, return the chicken pieces and toss until the chicken is glossy and the liquid has been absorbed.
- Everyone (or at least the food fashionable) seems to think it’s very passé to scatter dishes with parsley these days, but do it if you want to.