French Fridays with Dorie: Chicken Basquaise

I took advantage of the cooler weather on Sunday to make this week's French Fridays with Dorie Chicken Basquaise. I'm glad I made it early, and over the weekend, because it may not have happened during the work week. It takes time to prepare the pipérade, a medley of sliced onions, bell peppers and mild chiles, slowly sautéed with tomatoes, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, and piment d'Espelette. It takes even longer to roast and peel all the peppers and chiles first. I didn't take the time to do this extra step (neither does Dorie) and didn't really mind a few floating pepper skins in the dish.  I also used canned San Marzano whole peeled tomatoes instead of peeling fresh tomatoes.

After preparing the pipérade, chicken thighs are seared golden brown, the pan is drained of the fat, and white wine is added to deglaze the pan. The chicken and pipérade then return to the pan to gently simmer, covered, for about 40 minutes. 

Dorie prefers to serve this colorful chicken and pipérade over plain white rice, finished with a sprinkling minced fresh basil or cilantro. I served mine over extra wide egg noodles, garnished with basil.

Dorie's recipes for the Pipérade and Chicken Basquaise were published in The Washington Post.

If you wish to go chicken-less, Pipérade and Eggs is another option. Simply spoon warm pipérade into shallow bowls, make a little well in the center of each, and fill the well with softly scrambled eggs. Drizzle the eggs with olive oil, garnish with fresh basil, and serve with slices of warm toasted country bread rubbed with garlic and moistened with oil.

Give me a few minutes - I just talked myself into making this for lunch with some leftover pipérade sans the crusty bread...

A few minutes later...yes, that's quite nice ;-)

French Fridays with Dorie is an online cooking group, dedicated to Dorie Greenspan‘s Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours. As members of the group, we have purchased the cookbook and cook along as much as we can. There is a new recipe each week, and we post about that recipe on Friday. We are asked to refrain from posting the actual recipes on our blog. The book is filled with stunning photography, and personal stories about each recipe, which makes it that much more intriguing. I highly recommend adding it to your cookbook collection if you haven't already!