Mexican chicken stew with zingy onions

You can’t beat a one-pot stew for a swift and simple midweek tea. This one is based on a BBC Good Food recipe which I played about with cos I didn’t have half the ingredients (who keeps chipotle paste in the store cupboard?!)

It was warming, spicy, smokey and a bit sweet which is why I added the zingy onions at the end.

Start by slicing a little red onion – pop it in a bowl with the juice of a lime (or about a shot of bottled lime juice). Let this sit while you cook the rest for lime and onion to exchange flavours.

Now to the stew. In a big pot brown some chicken thighs – enough for two each – in a little oil. Remove them from the pan and fry a diced onion and two cloves of garlic. Once they’re translucent, add three good teaspoons of paprika and one of smoked paprika. Let that all cook out for a minute before adding a tin of tomatoes – chop them up in the pan if they’re whole ones. Stir in the end of a teaspoon’s worth of sugar, just a small pinch really. Then do a dozen shakes with the Tabasco sauce bottle (or anything else to give some heat, chilli flakes, cayenne pepper or a fresh chilli).

Let that stew for about 20 mins or until the chicken is cooked through. Pull the chicken out onto a plae and shred it with two forks, like you would attack a Chinese takeaway duck for pancakes.

Put the chicken back into the sauce for five more minutes until it’s reached a stage which can only be described as unctuous.

Spread the lime-soaked onions on top and serve with rice. And fresh coriander if you happen to have some knocking about. I didn’t and it was still pretty darn good.

And I’m definitely going to do the onions trick neck time we have a BBQ – imagine they’ll be belting on a burger.