Tomato and Onion Chicken

I'm not sure if you all remember Hadi's Mediterranean-Feel Chicken from last time. Well, today, he made something very very similar to it. But...well, there are *some* differences I guess, so I will be providing the recipe. Here we go!

What you need:
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 onions, sliced finely
2 tablespoons tomato sauce
1 can chopped tomatoes with herbs, 400g
1 tablespoon cornflour, mixed with some water
3 chicken thighs
Black pepper, for seasoning

What you do:

1. Heat the oil in a wok. Stir-fry the onions until softened and translucent. Add the tomato sauce and stirfry for another 2 minutes.
2. Add in the chopped tomatoes, with their juice. Simmer for about 3 minutes. Add in the cornflour and mix well to combine.
3. Add the chicken and cover the pan loosely. Leave to simmer for about 30 minutes, or until tender.
4. Season the chicken with black pepper, and serve.
   

Well, this time around, the newer dish isn't really an improvement over the older one. To be fair, Hadi "forgot" that he made this kind of chicken before and was actually aiming to make ayam tomato.

Well, this was kind of tomatoey, I guess, only I don't use chopped tomatoes in my ayam tomato. I prefer just tomato sauce, coz for me...fresh or canned tomatoes taste a bit... empty. There's something lacking in them, and I just can't place what it is! True enough, this dish tasted of just... tomato, and nothing else. Well, there was onions and stuff, but the tomato was just ... there! I can't explain it, heh. :P

Usually, I would add some stuff to give the flavour some depth. Some herbs, maybe a bit of chicken stock, even a pinch of sugar. Cheese goes really well with tomato, and in fact, I have a recipe filed away somewhere that combines tomato and chicken and cheese (but that's for another day, I guess). Hadi actually wanted to put in some cheese, but because we haven't gone shopping in awhile, we're running out of stuff - and cheese is one of them, heh. So that's a no-go for the cheese, but ah well. Next time, maybe?

Quote of the day: A world devoid of tomato soup, tomato sauce, tomato ketchup and tomato paste is hard to visualize. Could the tin and processed food industries have got where they have without the benefit of the tomato compounds which colour, flavour, thicken and conceal so many deficiencies? How did the Italians eat spaghetti before the advent of the tomato? Was there such a thing as tomato-less Neapolitan pizza?