by Irfan Shah

Created on: October 14, 2009

Chicken Yiaourti - Creamed chicken Greek-style!

Creamy yet light, bejewelled with chopped cherry tomatoes and spiked with pepper this recipe is something my partner Tracie and I concocted after eating out at a Greek restaurant.

And because we put this together ourselves, cooking blind and fumbling towards the taste we were searching for, this really is a concoction as much as a recipe! It's slapdash alchemy that somehow came good amidst the steam and heat of the kitchen.

As I mentioned, it was inspired by eating at a Greek restaurant. We had one dish that was a variation on Chicken Yiaourta, which basically involves the use of Greek yoghurt as a base for a sauce. This particular ingredient is probably the key to the fact that it has the decadent richness of cream yet is much healthier and easier on the stomach.

Cut to: Tracie and me at work in our little kitchen, shouting the ingredients we think we've identified in the original meal. We layer everything bit by bit, standing over the bubbling pan with tasting spoons.

We have a spare pile of cherry tomatoes, a little extra wine and some more yoghurt on hand to balance out the tastes. Eventually, we come upon this.....

Ingredients:

4 Chicken breasts (cut into pieces)
A dozen cherry tomatoes (chopped)
1 small onion (chopped)
4 Spring onion heads (chopped)
Half a red pepper
A knob of butter
A drizzle of olive oil
Approximately 300-400ml of Greek yoghurt
Six cloves of garlic (chopped)
200ml of chicken stock
1 Glass of dry white wine
Salt and pepper to season

1. First melt the butter with the olive oil

2. Add the diced chicken and the garlic.

3. Season and stir in over a medium heat.
Continue frying for five minutes, browning the chicken (two minutes with the pan uncovered, three with it covered)

4. Add the chopped onion. Sweat for two minutes.

5. Add the chopped pepper and again, sweat for two minutes.

6. Add half the tomatoes and stir in. These provide a lovely sweetness to offset the wine

7. Add the chopped spring onions and stir in gently for a minute

8. Add the chicken stock little by little with the wine. Stir all this in well

9. Simmer for around twenty minutes until the liquid has reduced. There will be a mild almost pungent aroma form the wine, a grittiness that contrasts delightfully with the tomatoes.

10. Add half the pot of yoghurt

11. Season with salt and pepper. Adding more pepper will give a vigorous little kick to the sauce. Experiment!

12. Cook all this for another five minutes.

13. Serve with salad or rice dishes, and enjoy!

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