The chicken extravaganza continues with a Serbian recipe. I always loved when my mom would make these slow Serbian braises growing up. I’m happy to share my version with you with simple pantry ingredients and a delicious whole chicken.
This recipe requires you to cut the chicken into 8 pieces. The bonus of doing this before cooking is that all the pieces cook in about the same amount of time. This means juicy perfectly cooked chicken. Here’s a link to a good tutorial on how to cut a chicken into pieces. Depending on the size of chicken you get, cut the breast in half width-wise so that all of the pieces are more or less the same size. Save the carcass of course to make chicken broth! Recipes below:
You can optionally add 2 sliced bell peppers to the onions as they’re caramelizing to intensify the flavour of the paprika in the recipe. Make it as simple or complex as you’d like! Enjoy.
Tomato and Paprika Braised Chicken
(Pileći paprikaš)
Serves 4-6, paleo, gluten free
1/4 cup olive oil + 2 tbsp
1, 2.5kg ferme reveuse chicken, cut into 8-10 pieces (see above for tutorial)
salt and black pepper to taste
1 & 1/2 lbs onions, peeled and sliced
5 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
2 tbsp paprika
1 cup passata
1 cup chicken stock
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup parsley leaves, for garnish
1/2 cup sour cream, for serving (optional)
A few peeled boiled potatoes, rice or crusty bread and a salad, for serving
Heat 1/4 cup olive oil over medium heat in a large pan that has a lid. Season chicken pieces with salt and pepper and sear on both sides until golden brown. Set aside on a plate.
Add in onions and sautee until golden and caramelized adding extra olive oil as needed. Be patient, this can take around 20 minutes. Add garlic and paprika and sautee until fragrant, about 1 minute. Stir in passata, chicken stock and bay leaves. Season with salt and pepper.
Place chicken in pan in a single layer as much as possible and cover with a lid. Simmer until the thickest part of the chicken reaches 165F. This took me about 25 min for my size of chicken.
To serve, remove chicken to a serving dish and optionally stir in sour cream to thicken. Spoon sauce over chicken and garnish with parsley leaves. Serve with desired sides.
I’ll show you how to make a broth infused with those classic Vietnamese pho flavours you love using the trendy Instant Pot. Please don’t hold me to the fire on this one, I know that it isn’t traditional to pressure cook the ingredients for a classic pho but trust me, this’ll curb your cravings. PLUS you get to use up that left over chicken carcass you’ve kept in your freezer after roasting a whole chicken.