Category Archives: Chicken

Cocido (Spanish pork and chicken stew)

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Cocido is a traditional beef, chicken and chickpea stew from Madrid. It is similar to the French “Pot au feu”, where all the meat and vegetables are cooked together and then eaten separately, with the liquid served as a starter and the meat and vegetables as the second course.

The recipe is based on one by Carlos Arguiñano (see this page for his Spanish version).

Cocido
Serves 4
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Ingredients
  1. 300g chickpeas, soaked for at least 24 hours
  2. 300g pork, cut into chunks
  3. 1 chicken thigh
  4. chorizo
  5. strip pork belly
  6. morcilla de cebolla (Spanish black pudding made with onions)
  7. 1 ham bone
  8. 1 white bone
  9. 1 large onion, chopped
  10. 2 carrots
  11. 3 medium potatoes, cut into chunks
  12. 1/2 white cabbage, shredded
  13. 3-4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  14. salt and pepper
Instructions
  1. Heat some oil in a pressure cooker and gently fry the onion until soft.
  2. Add the garlic and fry for another couple of minutes.
  3. Add the meat and bones (except for the chicken, chorizo or black pudding) and 2.5 litres of water.
  4. Season with salt and bring to the boil.
  5. Add the chickpeas, put on the lid and bring up to pressure.
  6. Cook for 30 minutes.
  7. Run the cooker under a cold tap to reduce the pressure.
  8. Open and transfer some of the cooking liquid to saucepan.
  9. Add the shredded cabbage and the chorizo and morcilla to the pan with cooking liquid and cook for 15 minutes.
  10. Add the potato and carrot tot he pressure cooker.
  11. Bring back up to pressure and cook for 5 minutes.
  12. Serve.
Notes
  1. Cocido Madrileño is traditionally made with beef, chicken, pork belly, black pudding, chorizo and bones, For this non-traditional version, I used pork, chicken, chorizo and meat bones. Mercadona sell a chicken and pork pack for this type of stew that includes the meat and different types of bones that you need.
Cortijo de la Plata https://cortijoblog.com/

Home-made chorizo

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Home-made chorizo

Home-made chorizo

Even though we didn’t have our own pork this year, I decided to make some chorizo. That way I would know exactly what goes into it and how much fat it contains. The recipe basically calls for 80% meat and 20% fat but as the pork belly I bought was very lean, the fat percentage was considerably higher. It is possible to make chorizo completely from scratch, adding your own spices and flavourings to the meat and fat mixture. However, as the climate on the coast is warmer and more humid than in the mountains, and not ideal for drying and curing meats, I wanted to be completely sure that there wouldn’t be a problem and we wouldn’t all be poisoned so used a ready-made chorizo mix call “Chorizol”. I then added more oregano, chilli pepper and chopped garlic.

INGREDIENTS:
4kg shoulder of pork
1kg belly pork, derinded
1 sachet chorizol
2 1/2 teaspoons chilli pepper
8 cloves garlic
handful oregano
hog casings

PROCEDURE:
Mince the meat and fat together. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well. Leave to mature in the fridge or a cool place for 24 hours.

Put the mixture into the casings. Shape into individual sausages.

Making chorizo sausage

Making chorizo sausage

Hang up to dry in a cool, airy place. The ideal temperature is between 10ºC and 13ºC. Leave to dry for 7 days. If the temperature is cool enough, you can store the chorizo outside the fridge but I decided to freeze it and take out use as needed. I also saved some of the fresh chorizo back and froze it without drying.

chorizo2

Fried Chicken Blood

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Fried Chicken Blood

Fried Chicken Blood

It was only last Sunday that I learnt how to fry chicken blood to serve as a tapa. Before then, I had always given it to the neighbour’s dog – but not any more. Sorry dog.

When you kill the chicken and cut the neck, drain the blood onto a plate with a sprinkling of salt. Once the blood has congealed, sprinkle a bit more salt on top and cut into squares.

Fried Chicken Blood

Fried Chicken Blood

Get 5 or so large cloves of garlic and cut into thick slices, skin and all. Fry gently in a frying pan until golden.

Fried Chicken Blood
Fried Chicken Blood

Gently add the blood squared and fry until they have puffed up. It is important not to fry them for too long or they will taste like rubber.

The blood has completely different taste to what you might expect and tastes more like egg yolk.

Pour the contents of the pan into a shallow bowl and serve with small chunks of bread.

Chicken Soup: Sopa de Pollo

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chicken soup

Chicken Soup

We needed to kill a couple of the male, incubated chickens and so we decided to make a soup with the giblets (heart, lung, kidneys), necks, chicken bones, gizzard, feet, etc.

We boiled the chicken bits and one of our pork bones in plenty of water and with some salt.

The stock was simmered for about 45 minutes and then left until we needed it in the evening.

In the evening, we reheated it, adding fine pasta. I added the finely chopped yolks of 4 hard-boiled eggs. Shortly before serving, I added the chopped white and made some croutons.

Chickens at 12 weeks

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Chickens at 12 weeks

Chickens at 12 weeks

The chickens are now 12 weeks’ old and are growing well.

Chickens at 12 weeks

One of the male chickens: he’s developing white-coloured ears like his father

 The males have started to adopt male posturing and one of them has even tried to crow – although the noise that came out was more like a warble.

Female Chicken at 12 weeks

Female Chicken at 12 weeks

None of the females has laid an egg yet.

About 10 days after the photo was taken we killed two of the males. We are going to have to kill them at some point so thought that now was as good a time as ever. They did not have much meat on them and there is massive difference between these and the chickens we kill for eating at about the same time. Still, we ate one (chicken casserole and chicken soup) and put the other in the freezer for later.