Butterbean Chicken Traybake

The beauty of a chicken traybake is in the versatility. You can substitute the veggies and spices to basically whatever you like and still end up with a really satisfying meal. One of my favourite combinations is to use carrots, spinach and butterbeans. It uses a chorizo / paprika mix as it's base but you'll do just as well here if you vary that up and try other combinations.

Gather the Good Stuff:

Chicken - Basically however much you need to feed your guests / family but please, use thighs and legs. If you use breasts, they almost certainly will get dried out and tough. Pat them dry with the skin on and apply a generous dose of salt & pepper. Allow to sit for 10-15 minutes before you start cooking
4-5 carrots - peeled and cut into bite size rounds
2 x 400g cans of butterbeans - rinsed
300g spinach - washed and shredded
1 or 2 chorizo sausages - diced into small chunks
1 large onion or 1 leek
2 tsp smoked paprika
2-3 cloves garlic
300ml chicken broth
1/2 cup white wine or broth for deglazing

Putting it Together

If you have a very heavy oven pan and a gas stovetop you can likely do all of these steps in the pan you are using. if not, just do the browning etc in a heavy skillet and transfer into your oven pan

Heat a glug of oil in your skillet over medium heat
Pre-heat your oven to 210C
Brown chicken skin side down. You don't need to cook these through at all. just give them a good 3-4 minutes on the skin side and 1-2 on the bottom to get a good texture and colour. Set aside on a plate
Drain most of the chicken fat from the pan but don't remove the fond. Add chorizo to the hot oil.
After 1-2 minutes add the leeks or onions and fry with the chorizo until soft. 4-5 minutes
Add the paprika and the garlic and fry for 1 minutes
Add the spinach to the pan and allow to wilt down about 3 minutes
Add the wine and bring the heat up to medium high
Continue to fry until about 75% of the moisture has evaporated
Add the beans / carrots and fry for another 2-3 minutes
Adjust for salt and pepper and transfer to your baking tray. Spread evenly across the tray
Place your chicken skin side up on top of the mixture. Carefully pour in the additional broth
Bake for 30-40 minutes until chicken is cooked and most of the moisture has been absorbed into the beans

Comments

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One thing we all appreciate about chicken is how nicely it can be transformed into something awesome and in pretty short order. This dish certainly fits that bill. It won't take you much more than 25 minutes to prepare and I'm confident how pleasantly surprised you'll be with the work / reward ratio of this dish. Key things to focus on are using a good smokey paprika and making sure you take the time to brown the onions well. Gather the good stuff: 1 Tbsp butter or better Chicken legs and thighs. Enough to fill a big pan. 2 or 3 Yellow onions - sliced. 1 Tbs of paprika. I use smoked but you can use regular paprika as well 1 cup chicken broth at room temperature 1/2 cup sour cream Putting this together Cut your chicken into thighs and drumsticks. Pat dry and salt well. Meanwhile slice your onions and set aside. Heat 1 Tbsp oil in a heavy pan on medium high heat . Fry chicken skin side down for 5 minutes or until skin easily lifts off the pan. Flip chicken and fry fo

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