Easy Peasy One Pan Dinner - Spanish Chicken with Chorizo and Potatoes

 This recipe combines two of my favourite things, easiness and chorizo. The chorizo, initially a pungent and smoky taste that evokes memories of sojourns to Spain, and now thankfully, and for some years, widely available in the UK so memory becomes reality very often. Easiness? Well, I'll be honest, I am fundamentally lazy and if I can get away with doing anything that I consider remotely taxing then I will.

But it's not just easiness that gives this recipe its appeal. Firstly, it's been gently adapted from the Nigella Lawson original, therefore it's totally yum, and I am not just saying this because I secretly would like to be Nigella, swanning around Waitrose and being able to indulge my penchant for fairy lights and soft focus, even when it's not Christmas. I have never cooked a recipe from Nigella yet that has been anything less than delish. Secondly, chicken and chorizo are natural bedfellows, and the mingling of the juices in this dish, with the helpful addition of a little garlic, onion and oregano which almost braises and roasts the potatoes at the same time and is, for me, the type of cooking alchemy that I enjoy. And I can be having a cuppa whilst the transformation takes place.

The recipe below has been tweaked from the original to include garlic, brown onions instead of red (a personal thing; cooked red onions are not my favourite it has to be said. I halved the original recipe with the exception of the chorizo, which I put more of in. I also used a chorizo ring instead of cooking chorizo, mainly because it was what I had to mind and because to be honest, I think it cooks well. However, don't allow my opinion to cloud your judgement.

Spanish Chicken with Chorizo and Potatoes, adapted from 'Kitchen' by Nigella Lawson.

15ml olive oil

6 chicken thighs, skin on, bone in.

350g chorizo - not the sliced stuff

500g baby potatoes, halved if large

2 brown onions, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 tbsp oregano

Grated zest of an orange

Salt and black pepper

Serves 2 plus Lola and Finn

Method

Preheat the oven to 220°C/gas mark 7. Put the oil in the bottom of a shallow roasting tins, 1 tablespoon in each. Rub the skin of the chicken in the oil, then turn skin-side up, 6 pieces in each tin. 

Put the chorizo sausages and the new potatoes in the tin.

Sprinkle the onion, garlic and the oregano over, then grate the orange zest over the contents of the tin. Season, then mix well with your hands.

Cook for 1 hour, but after 30 minutes, baste the contents with the orange-coloured juices.