Today’s recipe is called fire chicken for a reason – it will set your mouth on fire. Probably. Based on an African chicken dish, this dish really packs a punch but is lower in fat than the original. It’s really not for the faint of heart, but if you’re a lover of hot food it’ll be right up your street.
It owes its heat to the scotch bonnet chilli used, but If you are a chilli lover, why not ramp the heat up even further by adding more chillis? But remember – it’s easier to add the heat than to take it away, so take it easy and add it little by little.
Fire chicken recipe
Serves 6 | Prep time: 10 minutes | Cook time: 40 minutes
Nutritional info per serving
Calories: 508 | Total fat: 14g | Carbs: 29g | Sugars: 15g | Protein: 69g
Ingredients
- 1 medium onion
- 8 cloves of garlic, peeled
- 1 inch ginger, peeled
- 1 stick of celery
- 4 tbsp fresh parsley
- 4 tbsp fresh coriander
- 1 scotch bonnet chilli pepper (alternatively, if you’re not a fan of spicy food, you can sub this for a regular chilli)
- 1/2 tsp white pepper
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2kg mixed chicken thigh and drumstick
- 4 ripe plaintain
- 500ml passata
- 1 chicken stock cube
- 1 large carrot, sliced
- 150g green beans
- 1 red pepper
- 4 spring onions
- Frylight
Method
- Peel the onion and put half of it in a blender along with the peeled garlic, ginger, celery, parsley, coriander and scotch bonnet pepper. Add 125ml water and blend to a paste.
- Put the chicken pieces in a saucepan along with 3/4 of the paste, half of the salt and white pepper and 250 ml water, cover with a lid and cook on a medium to high heat for around 20 minutes. Pre heat the grill to a high heat.
- Meanwhile, slice the plantain and lay it out on a non-stick baking tray. Spray with Frylight and place under a hot grill until the plantain is brown on both sides. Don’t rush this, you want a nice golden colour to the plantain. If it starts to stick, spray with more Frylight. Remove from the grill and set to one side.
- Remove the chicken from the cooking stock. Place the chicken under the grill and cook until the chicken is golden brown, again don’t rush this part, you want a deep colour. This deep colour really adds to the flavour.
- Remove the cooking stock from the saucepan and save for later. Now chop up all the vegetables into small to medium size pieces, the smaller you cut them the quicker they will cook.
- In that pan, lightly fry the chopped onion in fry light until soft, add the 1/4 of spice paste and fry for a minute before adding the rest of the cooking stock, passata and chicken stock.
- Check on the chicken from time to time and turn over to ensure its brown all over. Add the chopped vegetables to the sauce, then add the chicken pieces and any juice from the chicken.
- Lastly add the plantain and season to taste. Serve your fire chicken with wholemeal rice or some grilled corn on the cob.
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