Chicken & Chorizo Orzo

Chicken & Chorizo Orzo

Chorizo often creeps its way into my comfort food and go to recipe for a couple of reason one is its long shelf life I always have a couple stashed in the fridge and the other is because I simply adore its flavour and the flavour it imparts on any dish it is cooked with. For example, the flavour it can bring to a simple pan-fried chicken breast is phenomenal. Simply chop the chorizo warm it through in a dry pan until it releases those flavoursome orange tinted oils, remove from the pan then fry a butterflied chicken breast seasoned simply with salt & pepper in the oil until cooked through. Top with cheddar cheese and pop under a hot grill to melt the cheese. Yum!  

This brings me to my chicken & chorizo orzo which is the type of bolstering comfort food I love. The orzo gets all sticky and gives the whole dish a velvety texture, the chorizo gives bright bold flavour and the chicken cooks in the steam released from the whole dish and the skin in the final 15 minutes in the oven with the lid off makes the skin really crisp up and bronze. Truely comfort food at its best. It also helps that it is very easy on the washing up. Check out the recipe below. 

chorizo and guacamole breakfast eggs

Guacamole Eggs – One of my favourite breakfasts

I do love breakfast, especially on those mornings where I can take my time not that you will need much time to make this breakfast.

It consists of soft oozy poached egg on a bed of creamy smashed avocado with a confetti of warm chorizo sprinkled over and drizzled with a chilli butter sauce.

There are a few things to keep in mind when poaching eggs. Make sure you use the freshest eggs you can, or they will have lots of stringy fluffy bits (not that, that is the end of the world). Use a fridge cold egg and use either lemon juice or vinegar in the water to help the whites set. It is also a good idea to swirl the water before you slip in the egg which will make the egg while swirl around the yolk giving you a rounder poached egg. Make sure the water doesn’t boil as this can break the egg up and will cook the yolk very quickly and make it hard and, in my opinion, make it a disappointment. Finally, if you are after a perfect poached egg it is worth cracking your egg into a tea strainer and allowing the water part to drip through the strainer. It is this watery part that goes stringy and fluffy.

What are your favourite breakfast recipes? Comment below and let me know.

You may also like to try this recipe.

Sausage and sweet potato hash
Sausage & Sweet Potato Hash
Eggs in Purgatory

Eggs in Purgatory

Eggs in Purgatory

Eggs in Purgatory are as you might have guessed from the photo and name are eggs that are poached in a fiery tomato sauce. These aren’t the most photographic eggs in the world but what they lack in appearance they certainly make up for in flavour. As a quick shortcut here, I use spicy Chorizo sausage to impart a lot of flavour with very little work. You can if you want things a lot milder use a sweet smoky paprika chorizo instead of a spicy one and adjust heat level with dried chilli flakes and you can also cut out the meat factor altogether by removing the sausage and using just the chilli, garlic, tomatoes and sea salt which is tasty enough.

 I most often make these when I get in and am famished and need something quick. The whole dish from beginning to end only take about 8 minutes. It is so good with hunks of good bread to dip in and scoop out the fiery sauce and runny eggs with. Sourdough, flatbreads or any other favourite will do.