Rebecca’s Recipe of the Week: Registrar’s Spanish Chicken and Chorizo Shepherd’s Pie | Canalside Community Food

In Memoriam: Jonathan Nicholls

This week’s recipe is in memory of Jonathan Nichols, a friend and Leamington resident who sadly and suddenly died this past week. He served for a number of years as Registrar at first Warwick University, and then at Cambridge. This recipe, for Registrar’s Spanish Chicken and Chorizo Shepherd’s Pie, comes from a different Warwick Registrar (Ken Sloan), but through its name it can perhaps also celebrate Jonathan, and his enthusiasm for good food and a nice glass of wine.

Registrar’s Spanish Chicken and Chorizo Shepherd’s Pie

Ingredients

1 tablespoon Sunflower oil
2 Onions, diced
100 grams Leeks, thinly sliced
3 cloves Garlic, crushed
50 grams Chorizo, chopped
1 teaspoon Paprika
5 sprigs of Thyme
500 grams Tomato Passata
1 tablespoon Tomato Purée
250 millilitres Chicken Stock
100 millilitres Spanish Red Wine (optional)
500 grams chopped Chicken Breast
800 grams Sweet Potatoes, diced
1 ounce Butter
Salt and Pepper
30 grams Jalapenos
2 Red Peppers, diced
75 grams Ewe’s Cheese, grated

Mixed Salad

Method

Heat oven to 180C.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan. Fry the onions and the leeks for 5-10 minutes. Add the garlic and chorizo and cook for another 5 minutes. Stir in the paprika, thyme, tomato passata, tomato purée, chicken stock and the optional red wine, and bring to a simmer. Add the chicken, cover, and cook over a low heat for at least an hour until the sauce has reduced.

Meanwhile, boil a pan of hot water. Add salt and sweet potato chunks, and return to the boil. When the sweet potato has softened drain it, add butter, salt and pepper, and then mash. Leave to one side.

Once the sauce in the chicken mixture has reduced, remove the thyme stem, and then put the mixture into an oven-proof dish. Stir in jalapenos and peppers. Spread the mashed sweet potato over the top. Sprinkle the cheese on top of the sweet potato.

Cover with foil and bake for 25 minutes, then remove foil and bake for a further 10 minutes. Remove from oven and serve with mixed salad.

Ken Sloan’s recipe appears in Simple Scoff The Anniversary Edition, ed. Rebecca Earle (2015).