Friday, September 21, 2012

French Fridays with Dorie - Chicken Basquaise (Poulet basquaise et Pipérade)


Today`s dish for the French Fridays with Dorie group is „Poulet basquaise et Pipérade“.




This is a delicious combination of chicken, sweet peppers and rice that is typical of all the regions around the Mediterranean. Well, as the name of the dish suggests, this is a dish from the Basque region of France. The first step is the preparation of Dorie´s recipe for Pipérade *  (basically a vegetable stew), a mix of onions,  sweet green and red peppers (I did not use green peppers but red and orange ones), tomatoes and garlic with the addition of some spicyness from piment d´ Espelette, the Espelette pepper, "Ezpeletako bipera" in Basque language and then some herbs, namely thyme and a bay leaf.  The second step is the browning of the chicken, some wine to get all the chicken flavor (without the fat) from browning the chicken. Then you add the browned chicken pieces to the Pipérade and cook the chicken nestled in the vegetable mix until the chicken pieces reach fall-off-the-bone doneness. It is customary to serve this dish with white rice but in a lot of different French versions of this popular recipe, I have also seen noodles or potatoes served alongside.

We had some oven-roasted cauliflower with garlic, olive oil, lemon juice and capers alongside and I bought some fresh French baguette to mop up the remaining Pipérade.




This is a very colorful dish, bursting with glorious mediterranean flavours (for those pepper-tomato lovers) .It is easy to make and all of the ingredients are readily available.

When combined with rice, this is a superb supper any time of the year, again if you generally enjoy pepper-tomato based sauces. It is also fun to vary the heat of the dish with your pepper choices!

* Definition of Pipérade:
according to the "fooddictionary", this dish hails from the Basque region of France and has many versions that are always based on tomatoes and peppers cooked in olive oil with possible additions from onions, garlic, ham, bacon or other vegetables and even lightly beaten eggs. Pipérade can be served as a main dish as well as a side dish.

To see how the other Doristas prepared the “Poulet basquaise et Pipérade”, please click here.







17 comments:

  1. The colors in the first pic are gorgeous Andrea! This turned out to be a quite popular recipe. Have a wonderful weekend!

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  2. Lovely job! This is a dish worth making often and experimenting with, too.

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  3. Very nice looking recipe from a little German kitchen! Your sauce looks scrumptious.

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  4. The chicken goes well with the cauliflower and makes a great presentation. I'm certain this recipe will be used many times in the winter months. Hubby and I loved everything about it. Have a wonderful weekend.

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  5. Beautiful! The sauce looks great and I love roasted cauliflower.

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  6. Roasted cauliflower sounds like a tasty side for this dish. We really enjoyed it, but I'm not sure that I have the patience to make it on a regular basis.

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  7. Your meal is vibrant - the colors were not washed out at all, which always seems to happen to me when I am stewing. Gorgeous!

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  8. We loved this and I agree it needed a baguette to soak up the delicious juices! I have your walnut and fig cake in the oven right now and it is smelling divine. All your cake posting is making me want more and more cake!!!

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    1. Made the cake, loved the cake and posted about the cake! http://lolalive2day.blogspot.com/2012/09/fig-walnut-cake.html

      You're great looking cakes are gonna make me fat Andrea:) Thanks for posting!

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    2. This is so absolutely wonderful - your version and the way it turned out is just the best compliment of all, thank you for taking the time to let me know about your success!

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  9. Beautiful dish:) The Roasted Cauliflower was the perfect accompaniment. Great job - thanks for sharing.

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  10. I loved this, and found the leftober sauce quite versatile. With eggs for breakfast, and also as the base for a pasta sauce. Oven-roasted cauliflower sounds delicious to go with this as the weather gets cooler. Hope you had a great weekend, Andrea!

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  11. your dish and photo are beautiful as always!

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  12. your colors are just fantastic! :)

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  13. I saw this dish on other blogs as well. You nailed it with gorgeous pictures and delicious chicken. :) I want to eat this tonight... This beautiful plate looks like from restaurant!

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  14. Beautiful presentation, as always. I love that you took the time to present the rice so neatly. I wish I was better at those types of details.

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