Chilli Chicken and Skordalia

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Melt in the mouth, tender chicken marinated with chilli and garlic, then oven-baked and served with a luscious, silky, creamy, garlic mashed potato. Serve with a side salad and/or your favourite vegetables and you have an incredibly delicious and quick to prepare meal on the table in less than an hour.

I have been making this recipe for years; it is very slightly adapted from a Bill Granger recipe in his wonderful book, Easy. Bill uses chicken legs in the original recipe; I have used skinless chicken breasts but you could also use chicken thigh meat, either with the bone in or bone out, with or without skin. Just use your favourite or what you have available – all are extremely delicious.

What is Skordalia?

Skordalia is a Greek garlic dip made with crushed garlic, olive oil and either mashed potato puree, bread or even nuts to bulk it out. This recipe uses potatoes mashed with creamy, slightly tangy soured cream and garlic confit, rather than raw garlic,

By roasting whole bulbs of garlic in the oven for 40 minutes and you get soft, creamy cloves with a rich, sweet flavour. They add depth and complexity to the potatoes and they pack a wonderful, yet mellow, flavour punch.

How to make Chilli Chicken and Skordalia

Collect all your ingredients together:

Garlic Confit –

• bulbs of garlic
• olive oil
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

Chilli Chicken –

• red chilli, stalk removed and roughly chopped (de-seed if you want to reduce the heat level)
• dried chilli flakes
• garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
• fine salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• olive oil
• chicken breasts (or use chicken legs, thighs or drumsticks

Skordalia –

• floury potatoes (eg Maris Piper or King Edwards) peeled and cut into chunks, plus fine salt
• olive oil
• garlic confit
• soured cream
• freshly ground black pepper
• fine salt

To serve:

• lemon wedges
• side salad and/or vegetables of choice

How to make this delicious meal:

First make the chilli marinade –

1. Place the fresh chilli, chilli flakes, garlic, oil, salt and freshly ground black pepper into a small food processor and blitz until thoroughly mixed.

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Now marinade the chicken –

1. Slice the chicken breasts in half horizontally.
2. Lightly oil a baking tray.
3. Lay the chicken halves on the oiled baking tray.
4. Divide half of the marinade between the chicken breasts and brush over to cover.
5. Turn the breasts over and brush with the remaining marinade.
6. Cover with cling film and set aside for a minimum of 30 minutes or up to 24 hours in the fridge.

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Make the garlic confit –

1. Slice the top ¼ off a both bulbs of garlic. Put in the centre of a piece of foil. Loosely gather the foil around the garlic, pour over ½ teaspoon of olive oil on each bulb and season with salt and pepper.
2. Seal the foil loosely around the top of the garlic and put in a pre-heated oven for 40 minutes.
3. Remove from the oven. When cool enough to handle, squeeze the confit out of the cloves. (If you cannot wait and the garlic is still hot, I use rubber gloves to protect my hands.)

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Make the Skordalia –

1. Peel the potatoes and cut into even sized chunks. Cover with cold water, add the salt and bring to a gentle simmer. Cover and cook until soft. This will take 15 – 25 minutes, depending on the type and size of the potatoes. Drain well.
2. Add the olive oil, 160g soured cream, garlic confit from both the bulbs and the freshly ground black pepper.
3. Mash the potatoes with either a potato masher or an electric whisk. (NB If whisking, stop whisking as soon as the potatoes are light and fluffy. If you over-whisk, the potatoes can become waxy in texture.)
4. Taste and add more salt and/or sour cream as necessary.

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Cook the chicken –

1. As soon as you put the potatoes on to boil, put the chicken in the oven alongside the garlic confit. Cook for 15 minutes, or until cooked and leave to rest for 10 minutes.
2. To serve: spread some skordalia onto a hot plate.
3. Top with chicken and pour over some juices from the baking tray. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve some salad and/or vegetables on the side and a wedge of lemon.

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Made this recipe?

If you make this recipe, do please tag me on instagram @daffodil_kitchen. You could also leave a comment in the box directly below the recipe.