Susie’s Chicken, Fennel and Black Olive Stew

A fabulous stew made from Chicken thighs , this meat is a very good buy . The stew can be made in a slow cooker or in a stew pot on the hob or even put into an oven on a low cook ,it also freezes well . I put past into the dish but you can put potatoes if you prefer . For people who don’t like olives you could always put broccoli or another veg that you like instead . The sauce is so tasty you could have bread on the table just for the sauce .

Hello everybody hope you’ve had a wonderful weekend the weather’s been great this weekend I hope it’s the same for wherever you are in the country the world blah you blah um that always makes me feel better been out in the garden we’ve got some gardening done I didn’t

Really want to do the gardening but it was looking really in fact both Lawns look like a field anyway let’s get cooking this is supper tonight so I’ve got a crack on cuz we’re both starving um this is I’m hoping you’ll love it I AB I’ve tried this now twice uh doing it

Two different ways and I just love it so the original recipe for this was a slow cooker recipe um and more and more people are saying to me living conditions and things I haven’t always got all the pieces of Kit so I thought okay so I’m actually I’m although I’m

Doing it in my ninja I’m using the ninja a bit like the hob with a pan with a pan lid on basically that’s all it’s going to be so you guys and girls with just a nice big walk with a lid you’ll be able

To do it in this okay as long as you can control your temperatures and take it down to a simmer you’re laughing okay so it’s chicken thighs cheap and cheerful it’s getting more important that we think about our winter meals if we want proteins in it they’ve got to be the way

Economy is especially over this country um it’s tough It’s expensive so we need to think what we can use during the week that’s not going to cost Fortune chicken thighs in the past I’ve never been a great lover of chicken thighs but now I’ve experimented more with more recipes

So all I’ve done with my chicken thighs is so and peppered them I’ve got a tablespoon full of oil this has been preheating up into can you hear that lovely lovely Sizzle I’m going to Brown These Chicken Pies off that’s my first job this um dish has a fabulous sauce

And it’s really it’s the sauce and the vegetable that I find as big a star as the chicken okay that’s one um K of chicken and it’s given me let me count the pieces six pieces we’ll have two each tonight and then John will probably take the rest to

Work as lunch one day this week okay you just leave them in on there on a High um sear so if you’re doing it in your W you want Fair bit of heat so it’s sizzling get those chicken brown uh chicken ties skinned down browned off totally I’ll

Show them when they come out the other thing to say is I’ve gone for the Bor in I don’t normally the reason I’ve gone for the Bor in I’m not making this into a curry or anything so I want the flavors that the bnes actually bring to

The dish so that’s why it’s got the bnes in okay while they’re done they’re going to take oh 5 to 8 minutes and then we take them out and build sauce salaria sorry not salc my other favorite vegetable fennel is the main veg in here tonight it’s fennel season just like

It’s salc season um so there’s a lot of it about lots of people have said not sure what you do with this this is such useful stuff it can be finally finally diced into a salad to bring a little o in the flavor or today this is going in

Pretty like a chicken stew okay so you cut the top straight off you cut the bottom straight off this is what I do then you go straight down the middle of your fennel down there and I cut out the little solid heart bit that fits in there you don’t

Want to be eating that guys stays tough and then next job I’ll put that one but we’re using I’ve got half of it there one large bul of fennel and I’m just slicing it up not too fine like I said think of it as a we’re building a chunky

Stew that’s kind of what we’re doing okay I’m on my own again today so I’ve got a cameraman zooming in on Everything right so that’s my bowl of fennel I can see the hearts out there so that’s one large head of fennel and it’s just quite roughly chopped up okay this is a giant white onion so I’m only using half okay again just chopped up three cloves of garlic

Actually it’s only the size of maybe two good size cloves can’t get a hold of any decent garlic at the moment so I’m making do with what I can get just roughly Cho your garlic it’s all going in there right I’m just going to have a look at my Chicken I don’t know if you can see that over there but I’ll get another shot of it in a minute that’s exactly what I want going on I’m just going to slip them over when I take the chicken out we’re just going to stand it and let it set

Because we’re um going to build up we in the put in the veg and build up the sauce then the chipkin is going to sit in the sauce and that’s going to cook for another four to 5 minutes just like you would just stew okay right they’ve just been Brown off

In olive oil um I put about a little 1/2 tablespoonfuls inside the big pop now into that is going our onions and garlic St in and the fennel okay take spoon oh and the garlic and onions hit the pot oh go lovely smell okay we’re just going to sauté

Those off for a few minutes I always like to give uh onions a a chance to become translucent it develops the flavor if you’re wondering what that’s about now I am using a lot of my favorite ingredients tonight um a lot of you don’t like

Olives you don’t have to put them in and I learned a tip um just a couple of weeks ago friend of mine who uses lots and lots of black olives in her Greek cookery um you know I said to her sometimes found quite bitter she said

Soak them in cold water give them an hour in cold water drain them dry them off oh my God you know it works they’re absolutely beautiful it takes away all the bitterness right okay so you don’t have to put those in I’ve got another friend who’s tried this recipe she puts chunks

Of carrot in you can put in vegetables that you like anything that you like bring it to this dish make it your own okay some of the things I am putting in just give that a stir I don’t want any garlic onions sticking on there fabulous Dijon mustard one of my most

Favorite flavorings for anything uh honey that goes in and we’re using something a little bit different tonight Rose Harissa okay um I like Harissa paste I’ve got the apricot one which quite often use for curries I like the rose one for meaty dishes it gives it

Just a little bit of O uh glass of white wine quite a big glass actually but it makes the sauce beautiful three or four um sundried Tomatoes which I’m going to chop up they go in tomato paste and I think that’s about oh the beer Leaf okay

The beer Leaf can go in now and be developing its flavors so the beer Leaf that’s fresh out the garden that’s gone in right I want to chop up four these beautiful I love some dried tomatoes they’ve got such a lovely intense flavor if you like more tomato flavor just go

For it put a couple more in right okay and then chicken stock so but we’re going to put the wine in there probably next and let that let the alcohol kind of evaporate cook through develop its flavor right okay that sauce done I think we’re ready to put the wine in right

So oh that’s looking l right that’s gone in I want that to Bubble away so that I know we won’t get Intoxicated by it right okay my chicken stock half a pint of chicken stock into that I’m going to put my Harissa now you got to remember

Forks her is basically red chilies to paste mixed with other spices okay so just go careful don’t go by the tablespoon because you could spoil your dish this just this two table teaspoons sorry two teaspoons just gives it a lovely lovely flavor right so that’s my little bit and

I’m going in with 2 tablespoonfuls of tomato paste okay you could if you haven’t got these things in use a kind of chopped Tomatoes I want you all to realize recipes are only guidelines you can develop them to what you want them to be unless you’re doing classical French

Cooking which um does really depend on you sticking to the actual wids and measures and what’s in there for classic flavors everyday cooking like I’m doing is just about putting in what you like right okay right so I got all that going right that Wine’s starting to reduce nicely M gosh that’s

Lovely always remember guys don’t go too cheap on your wine for cooking yeah you just could make it just too acidic by using cheap wine okay right in with my um Tomatoes my sundried tomatoes they’ve gone in give them a stir wow right and now my Dijon

Mustard I think if I was going anywhere and people said you allowed to take one thing with you to help you the basic meals you’re cooking what would it be mine would be djon mustard and my olives are going in that was one small pack it’s 60 gr if

You’re wondering exactly the weights okay and the last thing that we put in 10 minutes before we finished I’m using this tiny OZO pasta um it always looks like rice grins to me but it’s absolutely perfect in this type of thing absorbs a lot of the stocks and flavors

It’s brilliant no need to do any spuds or anything else right okay and far from being last but least honey two tablespoons because of your chilies and thecid acid off the vinegar and my olives um when I initially tried this I thought First Take it needed a bit of

Sweetness in there I thought what’s the best thing I can use as a sweetener I thought honey I use honey in curries and all sorts of things when I need to just give it that little bit of softness okay that’s ready now any stock left on your plate from

The chicken put it back in but they’re going in oh okay that smells Divine that’s as far as we’re going now so I’m going to put the lid down all right I’m going to stop that I’m going now going to take this over onto I’m putting it on like a Bak roast

Thing as though I was putting it into the oven at 170 175 you can achieve this the same way by just keeping it on the top of your stove putting your lid down and what you’re looking for is you want a an active simmer you don’t want it just sitting on

A simmer it won’t cook the fennel you need quite a rolling simmer okay you can get that in your walk I quite often do this type of thing on the top I’ve tried it on the top um and I like it in here cuz I can leave it alone okay right so

I’m just going over to big and we’ll go down let’s go 175 and it’s going to need I want the chicken cook through and I want my fennel cook through so we say 40 to 45 minutes I always like people to judge themselves because some people like the vegetables really mushy really well

Cooked others like the malente and things like that so that’s why the chicken is virtually cooked now because we give it a good seal so the chicken would be cooked in another 10 minutes anyway but with it being thighs that muscle relaxes the longer it’s cooked

You could give it an hour on a real gentle simmer it won’t take any harm at all just keep checking you’re not running out of liquid okay so let’s start that and I’m going to say uh see you in 45 minutes hi guys I’ve just checked this this is looking so

Good smells Divine but it’s at this point now it’s got 15 minutes left to go so I’m actually this rice doesn’t there this rice pasta doesn’t take so long but I’m uh what it is great at I tip this in now and it absorbs some of the liquid

The excess liquid so you don’t have to do a reduction which is very good in actual fact looking at it if you didn’t want to put this in I wouldn’t even reduce it that much because the sauce is beautiful and you could dip crusty bread

In it so it’s up to you but I’m putting about two tablespoonfuls of pasta in here just enough really for John and I right stir that through now what you do need to make sure you do is get the pasta into the sauce not stuck on top of the chicken

Breasts like I’ve just done so I’m just flipping them over so the pasta goes into the sauce that’s it right put the lid back down and as I was saying guys if any of you doing this on the stove top keep a lid on so that you make

Sure it doesn’t dry out because that length of time it would dry out and You’ be just all the sauce would be evaporating one thing I must tell you I forgot I forgot to write it on my recipe I suddenly thought I tasted the sauce about 10 minutes ago made sure it was

Developing right I thought that’s lovely there’s some little thing missing and I couldn’t remember what it was and then I suddenly remembered I put half of a um preserved lemon in last time gives it kind of a quirky salty lemon anything thing I could have got away with it

Without it it would have been fine but because I’m all about building flavors I just thought I put it I’ve chopped it up bed it in there and it’s in there now and straight away within 5 10 minutes the sauce had lifted just that little

Bit so um it’s up to you guys whether you put those type of things in or not uh see you in another 16 minutes bye for now okay and it’s just finished so let’s get in there oh wow that looks lovely okay guys so I’m going to now serve

This don’t be put off with the olives don’t forget don’t you know remember what I said if you don’t do olives just don’t use olives use the things that you do like normally I wouldn’t put the green bits on CU joh always says what’s the green bits about but because it’s for

You people on YouTube tonight if you’re going into a restaurant it would be finished off this is no restaurant it will never be a restaurant but at least it looks dressed okay I do hope you give this a m this is a try absolutely I tell

You what I’ll just open up on the chicken uh size and just check that Meats beautiful right this is steaming hot while I’m going to test it that is simply so good and the chicken is it’s moist and full of flavor bags and bags of flavor so give that one

A go okay you can put you can put it in your s cooker you can put it in your oven you can do it in a walk on the top and if you’ve got one of these you can do it in that okay thanks for watching see you all soon