Friday 16 January - Tinga de Pollo

Although once the kitchen was finished I promised not to buy any more cookery books, I made the mistake of popping into The Works last weekend, and they had a sale on - difficult to refuse books priced at £3!

This one caught my eye, and last night decided to have a hunt through for something different.

Decided to go for a chicken dish, as we'd spotted some real bargain chickens at half price in Waitrose. The whole chicken was popped into a pan to poach, with some onions, garlic, celery and carrot.

For the sauce, I soaked some chipotles in boiling water - the recipe stated 6 - so I soaked that number, but after a taste test decided to only use 3 of them - probably a wise decision!

The soaked chillies were then blended with some roasted garlic, onions and tinned tomatoes. I also added some chocolate which wasn't in the recipe.

The blended sauce was then added to fried onions, and simmered for around 20 minutes, before adding the shredded meat from the whole poached chicken and simmering again.

I also used a recipe for green rice from the same book.

A puree was made from garlic, onions, parsley and coriander, with a splash of water.

This was then fried gently, and added to some cooked rice, and popped in a very low oven to finish off.

The finished chicken dish was served with the rice, tortillas and some guacamole/

Definitely one to do again, and a huge pan of chicken stock is left over to make other dishes with.