Spanish Chicken Hotpot

It's probably because I'm Asian, but hotpot to me means those winter meals where we boil a pot of flavoured soup and cook our own food in the pot in the middle of the table.

Well apparently this isn't the only meaning, since the label on the sauce base mentioned 'Spanish Chicken HotPot' but showed a picture much more like a stew than my definition of hotpot (I didn't choose it myself, it came in my Easter Show Showbag!). So when I mentioned to my family that I was cooking a Spanish chicken hotpot for lunch, all I got was plenty of confusion and unfortunately not much anticipation (infact, they were all expecting some kind of cooking failure).

I'm not the usually much of a fan of cooking with ready made sauces/sauce bases because it takes out the fun of playing with different ingredients and adjusting things to suit your tastes. But I had the sauce base (or 'flavour shot' as it's called) for Spanish Chicken Hotpot sitting in my pantry since March so I thought I'd make it before it expired and went to waste.

The base itself is a mixture of herbs and spices and a lot of oil, which is sort of where all the flavour is coming from. Mix together the base and a couple of ingredients and simmer away and you've got yourself a Spanish Chicken Hotpot.

The verdict??

We were surprised how well it tasted- certainly something different to the types of flavours I'd normally use in my cooking, and pleasantly so. It makes for a great winter comfort dish- still definitely not a hotpot by my definition, but definitely a tasty Spanish chicken dish! It does live up to the 'flavour shot' part of it's name though- there was plenty of flavour in the dish. Infact so much so that we decided to serve it with more rice, eventhough there was already rice in it!

Spanish Chicken Hotpot
Recipe from the box

1 x McCormick Spanish Chicken Hotpot Flavour Shot
500g chicken thigh fillets, cut in half
1 onion, chopped
½ cup of Arborio or medium grain rice
1 red capsicum, chunky diced
140g tomato paste
2 ½ cups chicken stock
½ bunch fresh coriander, chopped

1. Stir contents of Flavour Shot, then spoon into a large pre-heated frying pan.
2. Add the chicken and onion, stir to coat and cook on medium heat for 5 minutes.
3. Add the rice and fry for a further 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
4. Add the capsicum, tomato paste and stock.
5. Stir and gently simmer for 20 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the coriander and stir through. Serve