Prep: 30 mins | Cook: 40 mins | Serves: 4 (very hungry) | Cost: £ 8.57

Ingredients

• 4 large chicken thighs or breast cut into bite size pieces (approx. 600g)
• 1 onion chopped
• 12 garlic cloves
• 1 carrot grated
• 1 red pepper chopped
• 1/2 a courgette grated
• 2 tins chopped tomatoes
• Splash of white wine (optional but advised)
• 500ml chicken stock
• couple of large pinches of dried mixed herbs
• 2 part baked baguettes
• half a pack of butter
• Fresh chopped parsley – however much you like but prob a small handful

Method

1. Pop a generous splash of olive oil into a pan, once hot add your chicken pieces, fry until cooked, remove and put in an oven proof dish.
2. In the same pan, add another splash of olive oil. Chuck in your chopped onions and gently fry until soft. Add 4 cloves of crushed garlic and cook for couple of mins. Add your carrot, pepper, courgette and cook until veg has slightly softened. Then throw in your tins of tomatoes.
3. Once this is bubbling, add splash of wine (if using) and your herbs and bring to a simmer.
4. Now start to add your stock. Bring this to the boil then turn heat down and simmer until the sauce has reduced and thickened. Once your are happy with this, pour over chicken and mix.
5. Slice your baguettes into roughly 1 inch slices.
6. Soften your butter, add remaining 8 cloves of crushed garlic and parsley and mix well.
7. Spread garlic butter on both sides of each slice of baguette and place on top of your chicken, do this one slice at a time, as you don’t want to end up with buttered bread that you can’t fit in your dish. (Look at tips for any leftover bread). Now just pop in oven at 180 for roughly 35 mins – but I just leave until bubbling and the bread has crisped.

Blags, Tips & Tricks

• For the garlic butter, I would usually use a whole block of butter and a bulb of garlic. If you do this, it means you know you will have plenty for this recipe and plenty for something else. Any you have left place on clingfilm and roll into sausage shape and pop in freezer. You now have it all ready for future recipes.
• If you do not use all the baguette simply pop into food processor blitz to make breadcrumbs. Put into a freezer bag. You can now just put in freezer and when you have any leftover bread just blitz and add to bag you have already frozen. I have been doing this for a couple of years and it not only saves time for other uses but means you never have to waste bread.