I won a contest on Facebook, courtesy http://www.lifekirecipe.com to attend a Greek food festival at Renaissance Mumbai convention centre. The contest was to send in an innovative recipe using a list of typically Greek vegetables and other ingredients. My winning entry shall be saved for another post (once I have tried and tested the recipe.)
So the Greek food festival was a treat and we were delighted with the spread and freshness of salads and entrees. On the list were exotics like fasolada (spicy bean soup), dips like Tzatziki & Melitzanosalata, the classic Horiatiki, octopus salad, pastitsio (pasta with meat mince in a bechamel sauce), fried bait fish served with a slice of lime etc.
One dish which caught our fancy was the Chicken Sofrito.
It looked like a chicken in white sauce, with what we were quite surprised to see, potatoes and carrots. This dish was the dish of the day for us! And I was super excited to go home, hunt for it on the internet and make it at home. However my excitement was short lived, all the recipes for Sofrito constituted red meat – lamb or venison even. Some recipes called the recipe Greek, others Mediterranean or Lebanese. But I did understand how to cook a Sofrito and this is what we savoured at home the same week.
You will need:
- 1 small onion – chopped into medium chunks
- 1 small potato sliced fairly thin
- 1 carrot sliced round
- 4 to 5 French beans broken in half
- 3 to 4 dried apricots
- 2 tbsp flour
- coriander stalks for flavour
- herbs like sage or thyme
- salt and pepper to taste
- 2 tbsp olive oil
Wash to clean the chicken pieces and pat dry with a kitchen towel. Drizzle salt pepper over the chicken pieces, coat in the flour. Reserve the remaining flour for use later. Heat oil in a pan and when sizzling hot, dunk in the chicken pieces to brown them on both sides – about 2 minutes each side. Turn the chicken pieces out onto some kitchen paper to drain off the oil.
In a saucepan or kadhai, heat some more oil and add the onions. Sauté for about a minute or so, then add carrots, followed by potatoes, French beans and apricots. Add some salt to make the veggies sweat and cook. Add in the dried herbs and coriander stalks. Cover & cook for about 5 minutes.
Looks so colourful, doesn’t it.
Next pour in the white wine into the saucepan, make sure the heat is turned low or else the pan can flare up due to the alcohol. Stir the wine in well and allow to gently heat up. Then add the chicken pieces we had fried earlier into the pan. Sprinkle the flour which we had retained earlier or add 2 tsps of flour into the pan to thicken the sauce.
If the sauce is looking too thick, add little water to it. Cover & cook on a low flame for about 10 minutes. This will impart a rich, winey flavour to the sauce.
Serve Chicken Sofrito with delicately flavoured soft breads like focaccia or even with rice.
As the Greeks do, break the plate once you’re done!
Gourmet Shourmet 