An ideal dish for a bottle of red wine
ingredients for 4 servings (cost about 6€ pp with)
- Sale
- 4 cosce di pollo
- 4 top quality sausages
- 1 cipolla media
- 8 cipolline
- 8 large garlic cloves
- 8 prugne essiccate
- 8 pomodorini
- 300 ml vegetable stock
- 10 g pine nuts
- 1 stecca di cannella
- A small glass of brandy
- Olio d´ oliva EV
- pepe nero macinato
- 2 medium to large sweet potatoes
- 40 g di burro
Dried prunes along with pine nuts are usually part of the Catalan roasts (rostits), which do not look like most roasts in Europe, as they are much wetter and are cooked slowly at a low temperature, usually on the stove.
One of the best of these roasts is the “rostit de festa major”, the roast of the festival. It is usually made with chicken legs, pancetta and sausages, however we can use one of these meats or different kinds, “rostit” is primarily determined by the way it is prepared.
Although the Catalans cook all the ingredients together in a hull, I prefer a different way of cooking, which prevents better colours and textures.
We first of all put in hot water the prunes to soak.
We cut the onion in dice and we subfry it in a DO. As soon as it softens we add the garlic cloves with their skin, the cherry tomatoes peeled, the small onions whole but peeled and the cinnamon stick.
We add the brandy and as soon as it evaporates the chicken stock. We add salt, tasting it and we let boil gently until the ingredients soften slightly and form a sauce, but without losing their shape . We keep aside, permitting the aromas to evolve.
We make some slices on the sausage surface. We brown them, along with the chicken legs. We lower the temperature, we put a lid and we simmer them as long as every kind of meat needs. I repeat that we are searching for a wet and tender result, that´s crucial.
Meanwhile we prepare the purée. We bake the sweet potatoes with the peel, covered with aluminium foil for about an hour in a 180 Celsius degrees oven. We want the sweet potatoes to be very very tender, so if they are not tender enough we continue baking them. When ready we peel them and we make them purée with the butter. As we want a dense result we don´t dilute with milk or stock. We salt and pepper the purée. We also roast the pine nuts in the oven for about 5 to 6 mins.
We add at the same pot the chicken legs, the sausages, their fats left in the pan, the sauce of the aromatics and the prunes and we bring to gentle simmer for just 5 minutes. The last moment we add the pine nuts. We check the saltiness.
We put portions of purée on the plates, adding a chicken leg, a sausage and sauce and we serve.
