Nigel Slater’s chicken wings with red peppers

The recipe

Drain a 320g jar of roasted red peppers, then lay the pieces of pepper in the bottom of a roasting tin. Peel 3 juicy cloves of garlic and tuck them, together with 150g of cherry tomatoes, among the peppers. Set the oven at 200/gas mark 6.

Tear a thick slice of bread, about 75g in weight, into large chunks and place on the peppers with 700g of chicken wings. Trickle 6 tbsp of olive oil over the lot and bake for about 45 minutes until the bread is golden and the peppers and tomatoes are soft. Remove from the oven.

Lift the chicken wings from the tin and keep them warm. Tip the peppers, bread, garlic and tomatoes into a food processor or blender, together with the oil and roasting juices. Process to a thick, brick-red cream. Serve the cream with the chicken wings. Enough for 2.

The trick

As it bakes, the torn pieces of bread soak up the juices of chicken, garlic and tomatoes, lending a depth you don’t get from just adding the bread raw.

Remove it from the roasting tin as soon as it is deep gold. While you are making the red pepper pâté, return the chicken wings to the oven to crisp up.

The twist

I like the sweet, warm red pepper paste as it is, but sometimes I add a few drops of red wine vinegar. A tablespoon should be enough, but make sure that you taste it as you go.

Small pork ribs could replace the chicken wings, roasted slowly with a little pork fat and some fennel seeds, then added to the peppers when they are ready to bake.

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