Campsite Chicken With Plums

We are in the last couple of days of the holiday so meals are less planned and more a case of what do we have left . . .
Ideal opportunity adapt some old favourites to fit in with current resources.

So today's evening meal will be a campsite interpretation of pork with apple sauce.

Step 1: Ingredients . . .

To make this lovely sweet dish you will need the following ingredients:

olive oil
onions
garlic
choritzo sausage
chicken
apple juice
plums
bread

Step 2: Onions and Choritzo . . .

Let's start with the classic base for all stews, softened onions. Chop a couple of medium size onions or a large single onion and drop this into some olive oil heating over a medium flame. Now cover with a lid and let slowly soften for 5 minutes.

Due to lack of stock I have also chopped up some choritzo sausage and included that with the onion.

Step 3: Garlic . . .

You really want to put the garlic in your dish once the onions have softened. The reason for this is that if you catch and burn garlic whilst browning / softening the onions then it takes on a bitter taste. So only adding it afterwards solves this problem.

Now I'm going to show a great technique for quickly preparing lots of garlic:-

If you want lots of garlic then simply start by cutting the bottom of a whole garlic bulb or remove the number of cloves you require and cut of the bottom sliver of each to remove the brown, tough part where the individual cloves join the bulb.

Once you have done this then lightly crush the cloves with the flat side of your knife. This will detach the skin and the clove should easily be removed.

You get more flavour from crushed garlic than chopped garlic so what do you do if you do not have a garlic crusher? You put some salt on your chopping board, place a couple of garlic cloves on top of the salt and crush them with the side of the knife blade as before. However this time you keep the pressure downward, draw the blade towards you and the garlic will be crushed and torn up.

Because I have a rubbish camping knife, I then have to roughly chop through the pile but hopefully you don't.

Step 4: Chicken . . .

Brown your chicken pieces in some hot oil before adding to the onions.

Here I'm using chicken thighs because they are cheap and I think tastier than breast meat.

Also because everyone was hungry after a day lying around the pool, I have added some extra French sausages.

Step 5: Yummy Sauce . . .

For the sauce, simply take 3 to 4 plums, cut them in half to remove the stone and chop further into small chunks.

These can then be added to the pot and the liquid topped up with apple juice so that it just covers everything.

Bring this to the boil, leave for 20 minutes and it is ready to eat . . .

In the last couple of minutes I threw in some crumbled bread to help thicken the sauce a little in lieu of not having cornflour.

Step 6: Sautee Potatoes . . .

Whilst all this was going on, I had par-boiled some potatoes until they were almost cooked.

These were drained and sliced before throwing in a hot pan with more garlic, salt and some dried herbs. Once crispy and brown then they are done.

Step 7: Enjoy . . .

So there we have it, Campsite Chicken with Plums and Sautee Potatoes washed down with a lovely crisp white French wine.