Chicken, butternut squash and borlotti beans
Adapted from the ‘Leon: Ingredients and Recipes’ cookbook, a hearty and tasty stew, perfect for autumn
20 mins
3 hours
527 kcals
serves 4
CHICKEN, BUTTERNUT SQUASH AND BORLOTTI BEANS
This is one of my favourite meals to cook when we have company, it’s incredibly easy to make a vast quantity of it, it doesn’t involve a lot of work, and it’s really tasty! If you aren’t using canned borlotti beans then you will need to soak the beans overnight, but as you also need to marinade the chicken overnight this isn’t a big hassle. Most of the flavour’s in the marinade so there’s not too much work the next day! The original recipe suggests pumpkin, which is fab, but I have substituted this for butternut squash as it tends to be more available all year round. This would be a great Halloween dinner! Also a good one to make a big pot of on a Sunday and take for work lunches to quickly reheat.
Chicken, butternut squash and borlotti beans
- Total Time: 3 hours 20 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
Description
Adapted from the Leon: Ingredients and recipes cookbook, a hearty and tasty stew, perfect for Autumn
Syns: 2 per portion
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
- 1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
- 1 tbsp clear honey
- ½ teaspoon dried chilli flakes
- 2 cloves of garlic (chopped)
- ¾ tsp fennel seeds
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
- 500 g boneless chicken thighs (cut into large dice)
- 120 g dried borlotti beans (or 1 x 400g tin, drained, added at the same point in the recipe)
- 1 x 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
- 1 medium leek (thickly sliced and washed well)
- 500 ml chicken stock
- 1 heaped tbsp chopped sage
- 500 g butternut squash (peeled and cut into bitesize pieces)
- salt and pepper
Instructions
- Put the vinegar, mustard, honey, chilli, garlic, fennel seed, oregano, bay leaves and olive oil into a dish and roll the chicken around in it Put into the fridge to marinade overnight. At the same time, soak the borlotti beans overnight in plenty of cold water.
- Next day, drain the borlotti, cover with fresh water and simmer until cooked – about 1½ hours.
- When the beans are pretty much cooked, fry the chicken with the marinade in a dry, medium hot, heavy-bottomed saucepan – you don’t need any oil as it’s already in the marinade.
- Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally; be careful about it catching on the bottom of the pan – caramelising good, burning bad.
- Preheat the oven to 210C/410F/gas mark 6½.
- Add the tomatoes, leek, cooked drained beans, stock and sage to the chicken, stir well and simmer for about half an hour.
- Spread the butternut squash cubes on a baking tray (spray the tray with frylight first) then spray all over with frylight and season then roast in the preheated oven for about 25 minutes, shuffling them once – you want them to have a bit of colour.
- Once the butternut squash is done turn the chicken off and stir it in.
Notes
This is one of those dishes that tastes even better the next day after a night in the fridghe, so if you are catering for lots of people it’s a perfect one just to reheat to save cooking when you have guests over!
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 3 hours
I made this tonight for my family, absolutely delicious 😋 Will defo be making it again.