Congratulations Elaine, have some chicken ratatouille

My high-school chum Elaine is getting married soon – Saturday was her hen’s night. One of the things we, the hens (seriously, what is with the origin of that term), were instructed to make a dish and bring a recipe along to put in a makeshift cookbook of sorts, so that she can make our dishes in the future. Aww.

I decided to make my delicious, world-famous (not really) chicken ratatouille. Facebook stalkers may recall that I made this a few months back and posted a picture of it, which I don’t seem to be able to find now, hence the placeholder image. Perhaps it was a dream…  Anyway, this meal is super easy to make and is great for making it big batches and eating over the course of a week.

500g sliced chicken thigh/breast fillets
400g can of diced tomatoes
1 tablespoon of garlic
1 diced medium-sized onion
1 diced medium-sized eggplant
1 sliced zucchini
(opt) 1 1/2 tablespoons of chicken stock powder
(opt) corn, mushrooms, other vegetables
(opt) pasta
salt and pepper to taste

1. In a frying pan, sautee chicken until browned.
2. In a separate pot, sautee onion until soft. Add garlic, zucchini and eggplant (corn, mushrooms, etc. optional) and sautee until soft. (Depending on the size of your pot, you might find this hard to do! Just keep stirring the vegetables.)
3. Add the can of diced tomatoes to the pot of vegetables. Fill can up with water and add to the mixture.
4. Add chicken to vegetables and simmer until the stew has reached its desired consistency. If you’ve used an unflavoured can of tomatoes, this is where the chicken stock will come in handy. Add it and stir well.
5. If you’d like, you can also add pasta to the mix. If not, serve with crusty bread.

I received a lot of compliments about it during the hen’s night, so if you make it, I hope you enjoy it too! Leave a comment to let me know how it goes.