Spanish Chicken and Chorizo Tray Bake is designed as a midweek family meal. It requires about 20 minutes of cutting chicken and vegetables combined with 50 minutes baking. It is not difficult and once you master the process, you will create many family meals this way.
Spanish Chicken and Chorizo Tray Bake
This is a home meal that you should freestyle to suit your own preferences and use up any fresh herbs and vegetables from the fridge. At first attempt, quartering a chicken is a little fiddly, but you will quickly improve. Assembling a good tray-bake is a skill that opens a wide range of simple & light meal opportunities. This is quite a healthy, low-calorie, and relatively low-carb meal.
Equipment
- oven tray
Ingredients
- 1 med Chicken whole, approx 1.7 kg ish
- 1 Chorizo sausages, diced into 2cm pieces
- 2 med brown onions, roughly chopped
- 1 med red onion, roughly chopped
- 1 red capsicum, roughly chopped
- 1 red chilli/s, finely sliced
- 1 cup short or medium grain rice
- 1 carrots, roughly chopped 1-2 cm
- ½ sml butternut pumpkin, roughly chopped 1-2 cm
- ½ bunch parsley, fresh flat leaf, roughly chopped
- ½ bunch thyme, fresh sprigs
- 250 g cherry tomatoes, halved
- 400 g tomatoes can, diced
- 1 sticks celery, roughly chopped
- 4 cloves Garlic, finely chopped
- 1 tbsn ginger, about 2.5cm piece, finely chopped
- 1 tspn oregano dried
- 1 tspn paprika
- ½ tspn black pepper, ground
- ½ tspn salt
- 40 g baby spinach, stir through at the end
- any other vegetables you have in the fridge , that need to be used
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 200C fan-forced. Boil a pot of water. Prepare a large casserole pot or Dutch oven on the stove with olive oil on low heat to make stock. Place a heavy metal baking tray in the oven to heat.
- Peel and prep all the vegetables, putting all the carrot skin and off-cuts into the pot. We are going to use the vegetable cuttings and chicken carcass and off-cuts to make a stock at the same time as preparing the meal. Roughly chop one onion and a few pieces of carrot and place in the pot for the stock. Turn the heat to medium. (alternatively, you could immediately bag the chicken carcass and off-cuts and freeze it to make a stock later)
- Spread onion, capsicum, and chorizo evenly over the base of your hot baking tray ( 4cm-deep, 23cm x 36cm). Dot with butter and drizzle with oil. Place the tray back in the oven while you prepare the chicken.
- Now we are going to quarter the whole chicken. This is a great skill to have. Whole chicken in 2021 costs $3.90 per kilo and in this dish, nothing is wasted. Buying the individual cuts of chicken costs between $6 and $12 per kilo. To quarter the chicken, watch Gordon Ramsey or Jamie Oliver demonstrate the technique.
- Once the chicken is prepared, place the carcass in with the stock and pour ¾ fill the pot with boiling water. Season the prepared cut pieces of chicken. Coat it in paprika and dress it in olive oil.
- Fill the kettle and boil some water. Place the cup of rice into a pot and cover with boiling water and 2 tsp salt and bring back to the boil and cook for 4 minutes then drain, the rice will be half cooked.
- Remove the tray from the oven. Pull the contents to one end. Add the par-cooked rice and stir it through to coat it in the butter and oil. (give it a little more olive oil if needed) Add the can of tomatoes on top of the rice. Even out the base with the rice at one end, then layer all the other vegetables and cherry tomatoes on top across the whole tray. Place the chicken pieces on top, skin-side up, and dress with thyme and parsley. Return the tray to the oven and set the time for 20 minutes.
- Remove the tray from the oven and spoon over 1 ladle/cup of the stock base. Cover the tray with foil. Return the tray to the oven and set the timer for another 20 minutes.
- Take the tray out of the oven. Take the foil off and remove the chicken onto a separate tray. Put the foil over the tray of chicken and set it aside in a safe place. The rice should be just about there. Taste the rice to check. The stock should still be visible through the vegetables, add a little more stock if required. Return the tray without the chicken to the oven, setting the timer for 10 minutes.
- After the 10 minutes, take out the tray, stir the baby spinach through the rice and vegetables, return the chicken to the main tray. Depending on the heat of your oven you might be ready to serve or it might need another 5 minutes in the oven to finish it off. You could turn the oven off while you gather your guests. If the children aren't too small you might take the tray to the table and let people serve themselves.
Notes
This is a simple, low-stress meal to make. Once you have made it a few times, your technique will improve and you will be able to get it in the oven in around 20 minutes.
If you are only cooking for 2, freeze half the chicken for another night. If cooking for 6 to 8, get an XL chicken and add another cup of rice and one more can of tomatoes. It is a very forgiving style of cooking.
Have some containers ready when you make this. You will have around 2 litres of wonderful chicken stock ready by the time you have finished dinner.
Nutrition
Calories: 274kcalCarbohydrates: 40gProtein: 10gFat: 8gSaturated Fat: 3gCholesterol: 21mgSodium: 545mgPotassium: 578mgFiber: 4gSugar: 8gVitamin A: 3945IUVitamin C: 65mgCalcium: 74mgIron: 3mg
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