First Birthday of this Blog Today and Catalan Chicken with Chickpeas to Celebrate!

Crikey I can hardly believe it is twelve months ago today that I made my first post for a Hamburger! I started the blog really to catalogue recipes for family and friends, a more modern version of a recipe book. I was surprised that other people actually managed to stumble upon it and thrilled when 12 visitors a day grew and grew and people I had never met from all over the world were making my recipes and I theirs. I have had 53,002 visitors since I started, mind boggling.

I love cooking and entertaining but it has become more difficult to post as often as I still go back to the old favourites that I have posted before, what the blog has done is to make me attempt new dishes and try new things more often, and I have made a great many friends in the food blogging and twitter world.

One of my great highlights of the year was to have Nigel Slater actually reading some posts and rather liking them. Surreal.

 Anyway this is based on a recipe I saw in Saturdays Financial Times only they used Quail! I marinated the Chicken with Salt Pepper a squeeze of Lemon and a tbsp of sweet Paprika only an hour or so, then in a Casserole dish melted some butter with a glug of Oil and browned on both sides the Chicken Breasts and set aside.

I added just a touch more butter and added finely chopped Onion Garlic about two cloves and finely diced celery and Carrot and sweated them off gently for about 20 minutes

 Then add some finely chopped Chorizo and a finely chopped Red Chilli and cook out for a further few minutes I added a generous glass of dry White Wine, and of course poured a glass for myself, all cooks should drink whilst they cook simply rude not too!

Now add about a pint of chicken stock let it simmer...I made in a mortar and pestle a very simple Picada, I dry fried some almonds added them to my mortar and pestle along with a garlic clove some rock salt and a touch of Lemon juice and drop of olive oil and crushed them into a paste which I added to the pot and stirred in.
It helps thicken the sauce and gives a lovely depth of flavour

Now add a jar of Chickpeas (cooked) and top with the Chicken put it on a slow low simmer covered with a lid and cook on the stove for around 20 minutes.

Serve on a plate with freshly chopped Parsley and season to taste Delicious only would be better I think with Quail!