Chicken chilli verde recipe

I have been playing around with this recipe from chow.comfor a week or two now. Whilst a very fine recipe for chilli verde, I tweaked it a degree for our own tastes.

First of all we changed the cut of chicken. Neither of us are dark meat fans so we opted for chicken breast. We found the original recipe far too cinnamon flavoured so dropped that element altogether. I’ve never seen Aleppo pepper so a little online investigation seems to point out standard chilli powder is fine. We also dropped the potato.

I love this recipes great flexibility and ease. You could happily alter the mix of chillis to suit your own tastes. I should highlight that the following recipe makes a medium heat. I recommend including all of the chillis, there is no need to de-seed them in my opinion.

Chilli verde ingredients (serves 4):

1.5lb diced chicken
salt, pepper, flour to coat chicken
4 cloves garlic finely chopped
1 medium sized red onion coarsely chopped
2 anaheim chillis coarsely chopped
2 pasilla (poblano) chillis coarsely chopped
2 jalapeno chillis finely chopped
1 can low sodium chicken broth
10 tomatillos, husked and quartered
2 tb fresh oregano, finely chopped
1 tb chilli powder
1 tb cumin
1/4 tsp smoked paprika
handful of chopped cilantro to taste

Firstly season the chicken with salt and pepper. Coat the chicken in flour and fry over a medium heat:

Whilst the chicken cooks, in a large stock pot saute the onions and garlic:

When the onions and garlic have softened (5 minutes) add in the chopped chillis:

The chillis should be fried with the garlic and onions until they soften (3-4 minutes). By now the chicken should be nicely cooked:

Now add the chicken to the garlic/onion/chilli mix and cook together for a minute:

Almost there! Finally add the remainder of the ingredients (except cilantro). This includes the tomatillos, chilli powder, smoked paprika, cumin, fresh oregano and chicken stock:

Stir and bring to a boil. Now reduce the heat to a low simmer and cover the pot. The verde should now be left (covered) for at least one hour to simmer. Be sure to check in every so often and give the mixture a good old stir (to prevent sticking).

After an hour remove the lid and let simmer for another 15-30 minutes, to allow the verde to thicken. Once thickened stir in the chopped cilantro. You should then have something like this:

We like to have our chilli verde wrapped in tortilla’s, a little homemade guacamole, salsa and black breans: