Chicken, spinach and yellow pepper rice

I was expecting some guests this weekend and I set up my mind to prepare them stuffed orange peppers (at my husband's request). Unfortunatelly they couldn't make it and I'm stuck with a lot of orange peppers in the fridge. Googling around to found a recipe that uses the peppers, I came accross this one. Just cooked it for dinner and it's absolutely delicious. Very subtil in the flavours, so we grated some parmesan on top to give it a bit more body, just before serving.

Ingredients


1 tbsp Olive oil
1 yellow pepper, deseeded and chopped
300 g plump short or medium-grained white rice
150ml white wine or verjus
1-1.2 litres chicken or vegetable stock
125g chicken, cooked
40g spinach leaves
black pepper

Method

1. Place the stock in a small saucepan and bring to simmering point.

2. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large saucepan. Add the yellow pepper and fry, stirring often, until the pepper has softened but not browned. Add the rice and continue cooking and stirring for 1-2 minutes, until the rice is translucent and shiny.

3. Pour the wine or verjus into the pan of rice and simmer until it has almost evaporated. Add a ladle of the hot stock to the rice and cook, stirring constantly, over a low heat until the liquid has been absorbed. Continue adding the stock to the rice a little at a time and stirring until the liquid has been absorbed, for about 17 minutes.

4. When the rice is almost done, add the chicken and the spinach leaves and stir to mix evenly. Allow to heat through for 2-3 minutes, then adjust the seasoning to taste with salt and pepper and serve hot.

Chicken breast in spinach sauce

Chicken breast (the recipe asks for 10 steaks of chicken breast, but it's just 2 of us, so I just made 4)
1/2 lime or lemon
salt/pepper
butter

Spinach sauce

1/2 a pack of spinach (supermarket packs) or 1 bunch of spinach, cooked and drained
1 tbspoon of finnely chopped onion
1 clove of garlic, finnely chopped
2 tbspoons of butter
1 tbspoon of flour
700ml of milk (I used less, since I made half the recipe for just 2 people...so I used around 300ml)
salt and pepper
parmesan to sprinkle on top of it all
double cream (about 2 tbspoons) - optional...I made mine yesterday without and it was really good (I didn't have any at home and my spinach wasn't going to last another day)

Blend the spinach and the milk. In a pan, fry the garlic and onion in the butter. Add the spinach and milk mix. In a small glass, mix the flour in a bit of milk. Add to the pan stirring well. Let it thicken and check the salt and pepper. If you are adding the double cream, turn off the hob and add it.

Season the chicken breast with the lime/lemon, salt and pepper. Fry them in butter. Serve the chicken and put the sauce on top. Sprinkle it with (a lot of) parmesan.

Portuguese spinach (Esparregado de Espinafre)

This one I learned to eat while living in Portugal. It goes really well with meat, but most of the time I'd just eat it by itself. In Portugal you can find esparregados frozen and ready to eat.
Enjoy!

Time of preparation: 20 min

1 bag of spinach
3 tbspoons of olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
salt
1/2 cup of milk
1 tspoon of flour


Cook the spinach in water, following the instructions (3 min in 3 tbspoons of water). Drain it and squeeze it well. Slice it or blend it.
In a frying pan, heat up the olive oil in medium heat and add the garlic. When the garlic begins to get golden, add the spinach and mix it well.
Mix the milk and the flour until the latter has dissolved. Add the mixture to the pan and lower the heat. Mix it well untill it gets thicker.