Mushroom Chicken Cacciatore a la Thermomix

I enjoyed the Mushroom and Chicken Cacciatore meal so much that I have just made a modified version in the Thermomix. The original recipe appeared in Courier Mail's Q-Weekend magazine. 

The condiments below don’t include salt as the Thermomix stock concentrate already has salt in it. I’ve worked out that I can store my stock concentrate in a pyrex container in the freezer as I can easily scoop some out on a spoon. I have previously found that frozen jam can be scooped out in the same way if it is made with equal quantities of fruit and sugar. It looks like stock concentrate made with a significant amount of salt has the same properties.  

It tasted lovely even though the tomatoes lost their form and became part of the stock. Next time I’ll reduce the number of tomatoes and increase the amount of zucchini or capsicum. The rest of the stew ended up in the freezer with the meals being much more stock than chicken and mushroom. But that’s fine. I’ll enjoy eating it and won’t mind using a spoon to lap up the last few mouthfuls.  

I have just read the Thermomix forum and found a recipe for Chicken Cacciatore along with some great suggestions on how to reduce the resulting liquid.  Next time I'll try cooking the meal on Varoma temperature and steaming vegetables in the Varoma basket.I'll choose the vegetables carefully as 15 minutes cooking time seemed perfect with this meal and some vegetables require a longer steaming time. Probably vegetables that can be eaten raw like pumpkin, carrots, broccoli or cauliflower would be best.   

Recipe ingredients:

1 clove garlic

1 onion peeled and quartered

Olive oil 30g

300g chicken thighs diced

120g mushrooms diced

3 roma tomatoes chopped

1 zucchini diced

200ml water with 1 tsp Thermomix stock concentrate

Condiments to suit :  pepper, herbs eg oregano, rosemary or dried Italian herbs
Optional: Diced vegetables for steaming eg  pumpkin, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower

Preparation:

Chop garlic and onion in Thermomix bowl for 5 seconds on speed 7

Add oil and sauté for 3 minutes at 100 deg C on speed 1

Add remaining ingredients and position the Varoma basket on top if vegetables are being steamed. Cook for 15 minutes at 100 deg C or Varoma temperature (if veggies are being steamed) on Reverse speed soft.