Chicken Basquaise

Last night GS and I cooked dinner. We looked through a French cookbook and decided on Chicken Basquaise. It gets its name from the French Basque style of cooking.

As a warning, this dish takes a while to prepare. I'm not exactly a fast vegetable chopper, but honestly that's not what makes the process long. It really comes down to the fact that you cook the veggies by themselves for about 55 minutes. Then you combine the chicken and veggies and cook for another ~20 minutes. So cooking time comes out to be about 1 hour and 20 minutes if you're operating at max efficiency. If you take a little time to transfer from one task to another and add in the prep time for the veggies, you're looking at roughly 2 hours before you can eat.

Chicken Basquaise

      cooking tool: deep-sided skillet with cover or Dutch oven (at least 1)

4 lbs chicken breast, cut in half

5 tbls olive oil

2 onions, sliced

4 green bell peppers, cored, seeded, and sliced in 1/2" strips

2 red bell peppers, cored, seeded, and sliced in 1/2" strips

3 mild chiles, thinly sliced

6 tomatoes, peeled and chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 bay leaf

2 sprigs thyme

1/4-1/2 tsp Piment d'Espelette (chili powder will work as well)

1 tsp salt + to taste

pepper to taste

Heat 2 tbls olive oil in a deep-sided skillet over medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add the onions, cooking for 10 minutes or until soft but without any change in color. Stir every few minutes. While the onions are cooking, prep all of the peppers and chiles. Add these to the onions with 1 tbls of olive oil. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook for 20 minutes until the peppers are soft. After 20 minutes, add the tomatoes, garlic, bay leaf, thyme, Piment d'Espelette (chili powder), 1 tsp salt, and pepper to taste. Cover and cook for 10 minutes. Then cook uncovered for 15 minutes. Remove the bay leaf and thyme sprigs.

While the peppers, onions, and spices are cooking, prep your chicken. Heat 2 tbls olive oil over medium heat in a second pan/skillet. Pat the chicken breasts dry and place in hot oil. Cook the first side for 5 minutes (browning the chicken), then flip over and cook for 3 minutes. Remove the chicken and set aside. Pour 3/4 cup white wine into the pan to deglaze the pan. Cook until the liquid is reduced to ~2 tbls. Add the chicken into the pan again and cook for roughly 4 minutes. Spoon the pepper/onion mixture over the chicken. Cook for 20 minutes. Check to make sure the chicken is cooked through before serving. (The recipe we used recommended that you serve over rice, but since that's not paleo, your other options are eat it by itself or eat with cauliflower rice).