Chicken Marbella from Shaun Tinman at Frae
Unlike the original recipe from the Silver Palette cookbook, we’ve prepared ours as chicken cooked over the charcoal BBQ and served with the accompaniments suspended in the sauce.
SERVES
6
PEOPLE
COOKING TIME
60
MINUTES
Ingredients
12 chicken thighs, skin on olive brine reserved from gordal green olives
2 tablespoons aged malt vinegar
small bunch thyme
1 head crushed garlic
3 shallots, diced 4 bay leaves 250ml (9fl oz) white wine splash of Madeira 1 1/2 litres (2 1/2 pints) good quality chicken stock
1 can gordal green olives, torn in half 25g (1oz) capers
50g (2oz) pitted prunes, roughly chopped knob of butter
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
freshly ground black pepper
Method
Ideally, marinate the chicken thighs in the gordal olive brine, aged vinegar, thyme and garlic overnight, but a few hours will suffice.
For the sauce, add a splash of oil to your saucepan and gently cook the shallots until translucent, no colour. Add bay leaves, then deglaze with the wine and Madeira. Add chicken stock and gently reduce to a consistency where the sauce just coats the back of a spoon then set aside.
The chicken is best cooked slowly over charcoal allowing the skin to render and become crisp without burning, intermittently brushing the flesh side with the reserved marinade. If the BBQ isn’t an option, good results can be achieved cooking the chicken on a wire rack under a medium grill.
As the chicken is resting, return the sauce to a low heat and add the olives, capers and prunes, allow to soften in the sauce for a few minutes then add the butter and parsley and stir until evenly incorporated. Adjust seasoning with salt pepper and a little aged vinegar as necessary. Season and divide the chicken evenly between warmed serving plates, and spoon the sauce over the top.
