Tapas / Drinking Nibbles

Tapas / drinking nibbles need to be simple and rich in umami flavour, as nothing satisfies drunken hunger cravings and barbaric man food urges like meat and potatoes - it’s in our DNA! Before the discovery of potatoes people must have had a voracious emptiness within, which no slice of bread could fill after a few beers or a glasses of wine. Luckily this recipe has everything you could possible desire when you have the munchies; chard meat, crispy potatoes topped with a rich, salty, meaty sauce, and finally melted manchego cheese within some seasonal figs topped with a drizzle of honey. Each dish is very simple despite the complicated look of the pictures and all the bits of the dish can be scaled up for a bigger feast. For this recipe I have written it as through you were making all the dishes at the same time but feel free to pick and choose which bit you want on your platter. Happy eating!

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  What you need:

  • Half an onion
  • A stick of celery
  • Potatoes (I used 5 medium sized ones)
  • Loads of garlic (I am an addict)
  • A tin of tomatoes
  • 1 tbsp of red wine vinegar
  • 3 figs
  • 1-2 tbsp of honey (depending on its sweetness)
  • 2 big chicken thighs
  • 4 -5 inch of chorizo sausage
  • 2 tsp of a good smoked paprika 
  • Manchego cheese
  • Parsley

  How to make it:

  
  

  1. Finely dice up the onion and celery and sweat them down in a sauce pan (fry over a low – medium heat with a little olive oil), not forgetting to season the vegetables while still raw.
  2. Add to a bowl 3-4 crushed / finely chopped cloves of garlic, finely diced parsley stems, 1 tsp of a paprika and a pinch of salt and pepper. Take your chicken and place it into your bowl. Pour over some good olive oil and combine all the ingredients together getting a good coating on the chicken. Let it marinade at room temperature. 
  3. Get a pan of water on the boil and put some salt in it. Cut up the potatoes into chunks, like you would for roast potatoes, and boil them for 8 – 10 minutes until soft.
  4. Place the cooked potatoes onto a pre-heated roasting tray. Pour over some sunflower / rapeseed oil and throw in some garlic cloves which you have squished a bit using the back of your knife. Roast the potatoes in a 180 ^oC oven for 40-50 minutes or until golden and crisp.
  5. Whilst the potatoes are in the oven, it’s time to finish off your sauce.   Slice the chorizo into thick-ish chunks and raise the temperature of the pan with the vegetables in. Throw in the sausage and fry until the meat begins to colour and crisp up, taking care not to burn the veg. To the pan add in your spices (chilli flakes and paprika), fry for a minute then add in the tin of tomatoes and the vinegar. Reduce the volume of the sauce on a low heat until thick, and add in coarsely cut parsley. Season to taste.
  6. At this point the sauce is thickening, the potatoes are roasting and the chicken is marinating. Now it’s time to prep the figs by cutting a “X” shape 2/3 down the figs and open them up as shown in picture X. Break up some cheese and stuff it in the figs and place in the hot oven melting the cheese. Once melted drizzle over some honey.
  7. On a screamingly hot griddle (it should start to smoke) cook the chicken. Don’t move the chicken too much otherwise you will not get the charred stripes. Once cooked all the way through (~10 mins) take the chicken off the heat and rest it. By this point everything is coming to completion. Cut some nice ciabatta up, pour over some good olive oil and griddle, it making some little toasts.  
  8. Right it’s time to assemble everything; place your patata bravas (roast spuds) into a dish and pour over your tomato sauce. Take your rested chicken and slice it up and place that in a bowl. For the toast make a simple dip of 1/3 balsamic vinegar and 2/3 olive oil (and yes balsamic vinegar is not Spanish but it is delicious).

  -as an extra treat you could make a cheeky aioli - not alioli, which is the egg free version. The garlic left from the roasting tray of the potatoes can be combined into some shop bought or homemade mayo with a squeeze of lemon. Mmmm!!