Chicken & Ratatouille (the Spanish way)

This recipe I learned from my dear friends, Ronald and Monica, when we were spending a week with them in their house in Colmenar, near Malaga. We went to the market and we bought for a few euro's lots of ugly (but delicious!) tomatoes, aubergines, peppers and courgettes. And we also bought a fat chicken (it was probably a rooster) and when we got home, they prepared a delicious meal. And so easy!
This is the way I make it in my AGA.

Ingredients:
- a mature chicken, chopped in large pieces
- 2 ounces cubes of bacon
- 1 courgette
- 1 aubergine
- 2 large onions
- 20(!) cloves of garlic
- 5 or 6 large beefy tomatoes
- 3 peppers (green, yellow and red)
- a few rosemary-twigs
- some oregano
- pepper and salt
- olive-oil

Preparation:
Put the chicken (peppered and salted) in a roasting-pan and cover it with al the coarsely chopped vegetables and the bacon. Then add the herbs and splash generously olive-oil over it.
Now it is ready for the baking-oven. Leave it there for a few hours and take it out to re-arrange the vegetables. After about 4 hours your meal is ready. Great with home-made spelt bread!

Autumn (Roe) Deer Stew

In the Netherlands (at least here in this part of the country) it is hunting season now. So at the moment we have a fantastic range of wild meat to chose from for cooking a delicious meal. A few days ago we have got some great roe deer meat and we cooked a great stew in our Aga. You can also use deer meat for this recipe. How did we do it?

Ingredients:
- 600 grams of (roe) deer meat
- 1 kg onions
- 3 cloves
- 1 bay leave
- 8 juniper berries
- a handful dried porcini
- a large glas of good red wine
- pepper and salt (of course)
- a spoonful wheat flour
- 2 or 3 spoonfuls butter

Method:
Cut the meat in cubes (4 or 5 cms) and give them enough pepper and salt. Put them in a plastic bag and add the flour. By shaking the closed plastic bag you will end up with nice peppered, salted and floured cubes of meat, ready for baking.
Heat the butter in a bakingpan (we use a full-iron 'le Creuset'), and bake the meat on the boiling plate until the meat is light-brown.
Place your pan on the warming plate of your Aga, so the meat can rest for a while.
Now you can clean and cut your onions: cut them in large pieces and don't worry if there is still some skin on them: this will add flavour to your dish!
Bake the onions on your boiling plate and after a few minutes of baking you can let them simmer on your other plate, until they start to get brownish. They have to get a little sweet.
Now you put your meat on the boiling plate again, add the onions, stir and add the herbs, the dried mushrooms and the red wine. Keep stirring until it is boiling. Then it is time to put the lid on your pan and put it in the simmering oven for 3 hours.
Serve with cooked red cabbage or sauerkraut(!) and some cooked patatoes.