Chicken and vegetables braised in a spicy New Mexico red chile sauce, served over rice or polenta.
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In a large skillet heat the oil over a medium heat. Once hot, add the thighs to the skillet. (You might need to cook the thighs in 2 batches depending on the size of your skillet.) Your oil should be hot enough for the chicken to sizzle when placed in the skillet. This helps to keep the chicken from sticking. I like to the use a spatula or tongs and move the chicken around a bit to keep it from sticking which can easily happen since the skin has been removed.
Return the chicken to the skillet. Pour all of the juice that has accumulated on the plate into the pan and stir.
add a scoop of rice to the plate, top with a piece of chicken. Pour a little sauce over the chicken and rice and top with olives and feta. Enjoy!
Amount of tomatoes for the sauce – When I make this with 6 pieces of chicken I only use 2 cups of strained or crushed tomatoes. When using 8 pieces, 3 cups is needed in order to have enough sauce. In both cases, the sauce is relatively thick, but I like it that way because it sticks to the chicken rather than runs off. If you like a thinner sauce, you could always add a little more tomato.
Chicken – This recipe could be made with both dark and white meat. I personally think that dark meat is better for braising, but that may just be my personal taste. As far as removing the skin, I always remove the skin when braising. The skin adds too much fat to the braise if you leave it on and, IMO, braised chicken skin is inedible. I need chicken skin to be really crispy with all of its fat rendered in order for me to eat it.
Chile powder – If you’ve been reading my blog at all, you know what I’m going to say here – there’s no substitute for New Mexico red chile powder. 🙂 Actually, if you don’t have any you can substitute other chile pepper powders such as paprika, a mix of paprikas (smoked and sweet), ancho powder, Serrano, or a mix of several different chile powders, including a little cayenne. I use a mild to medium heat chile powder which is plenty of heat for this dish. The type(s) of chile powder you use does dictate the overall flavor of the dish, so make sure you really the like the chile powder.
Vegetables – If you don’t have a roasted red bell pepper, you could use a raw one. Just minced it like you do the onion and add it at the beginning with the onion and garlic. If you don’t have corn, then do what a friend of mine did – add peas or add both corn and peas.
Rice or polenta - As far as what works best as the carbohydrate component, that's a personal preference. Rice, grits, polenta or flour tortilla all work great. The main thing is that you need something to capture all of the sauce because you won't want a bit of it to be left on the plate.
Recipe author: MJ of MJ's Kitchen