Mediterranean Chicken with Capers and Olives

Chicken and pasta

A filling meal with the fresh flavours of the Mediterranean

Some South Africans class chicken as a vegetable.

As a South African myself, meat is a very important part of our diet, however, chicken doesn’t always count as meat.   It is only consumed by those on a diet or those that feel poorly. And on Sundays.

Some years ago I came across this recipe and ever since then it has become a regular dish on our table. Of course I have tweaked it over the years as I can never remember the original recipe and this is the result.

Mediterranean chicken with crispy skin

The chicken dish

Depending on how much time I have, I either start it off on the stovetop (when I have plenty of time) or I just compile the whole thing and whack it in the oven. Both ways are equally delicious.

The bonus part of just wacking it into the oven is that I can slightly tailor the dish to suit both mine and my husband’s tastes without too much effort! I love spinach and extra capers, and he prefers more chicken.

Stove top

  • Fry off the onion, garlic, olives and capers first.
  • Then add the diced tomatoes, spinach and stock cube along with the herbs and season well. Reduce the heat and let the sauce blip away until reduced and rich.
  • Whilst the sauce is blipping away, put the chicken in the oven until cooked through.

Oven

  • Start by layering your diced tomatoes, spinach, seasonings and stock cube.
  • Scatter the olives and capers over and arrange your onion chunks over the top.
  • Lastly place your chicken on top of the onions and bake in the oven at 200℃.

Serve

No matter how you choose to cook your chicken, serve it on a bed of tagliatelle or pappardelle and scatter over fresh herbs.

Crispy chicken on tagliatelle

Mediterranean Chicken with Capers and Olives

  • Servings: 2
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

Ingredients

  • 2-4 chicken legs, patted down with a paper towel
  • 1 tin of diced tomatoes
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 chicken or vegetable stock cube
  • 1 onion, cut into 8 chunks
  • 12 green olives, pitted and halved
  • 1 tablespoon capers
  • 1 cup spinach, tightly packed if fresh
  • 2 tablespoons fresh basil
  • 2 tablespoons fresh oregano
  • 200g tagliatelle, cooked according to pack instructions

Directions

    Pre-heat the oven to 200℃.

  1. Pour the diced tomatoes in an oven proof dish.
  2. Add 1 tablespoon of each herb and crumble over the stock cube. Stir well.
  3. Scatter over the olives and capers and arrange the onions on top. Do not stir.
  4. Arrange the chicken legs on top and place in the oven. Cook for 40 minutes or until the juices runs clear.
  5. Serve on hot, cooked tagliatelle. Scatter over the remaining fresh herbs before serving.


If you liked this recipe, why not try some more chicken recipes?

Protected by Copyscape

7 Comments on “Mediterranean Chicken with Capers and Olives

  1. Pingback: Sicily: A Foodie’s Paradise – Life, with Clotted Cream

  2. Pingback: Pea and Mint Risotto – Life, with Clotted Cream

  3. Pingback: Chicken Pesto Pasta – Life, with Clotted Cream

  4. Pingback: Freshly baked bread – Life, with Clotted Cream

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d bloggers like this: