Occasional recipes: Chicken with Olives

Of course, you could take away the olives and just call this ... chicken.

From The Cook's Recipe Collection, compiled by Jillian Stewart, ISBN 1-85833-441-1

• 2 tbsps olive oil
• 30g butter
• bits of chicken [recommends 3lb to serve 4-6. We just used three thighs to serve 3.]
  
• 1 clove garlic [oh come on - 3 minimum]
• 1/4 pint white wine
• 1/4 pint chicken stock
• 4 courgettes [2 sufficed nicely], trimmed & cut into 1.25cm pieces
• as many pitted olives as you care to mention
• 2 tbsps chopped parsley

Heat the oil, add the butter. When they're foaming, add the chicken skin-side down. Brown one side, then turn over to brown the other.

Turn the chicken skin-side up and add the garlic, wine, stock, and salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, cover the pan and allow to simmer for a further 30mins or so over a gentle heat. The bits of bird are about half submerged in the resulting sauce, which thickens quite nicely, and go very tender.

Add the courgettes and cook for a further ten minutes. Add the olives, cook to heat through, add the parsley and serve. We had it with rice which absorbs the sauce very nicely. The courgettes don't go all soft and squishy but do absorb the chicken flavour.

Optional: for dessert, for the third week running, use Tesco ready mix cheesecake mixture because your stepson can't be bothered to tax his braincells with anything more time consuming. Resist urge to punch air and go "yes!" when he asks if we can have a different dessert next week.