The recipe that has always been around since childhood is my grandmother María’s chicken with apple. My family is from Castile, in the north of Spain, where the food tends to be quite austere. Lots of bare roasts, not a lot of ornaments. But my grandmother kept chickens on her farm, and on weekends she would often cook one.

She lived in a tiny village – I think there are only about six or seven people living there now. It really is the middle of nowhere. I can remember when they got running water, and when the phone lines were installed.

Every year, as a child, I would go there for a month or so during the summer. I was very close to them. She was a wonderful cook. And I was always around in the kitchen with my cousins. When my grandparents got older, they came to live with us in my own village.

Like many women in Spain at the time, my grandmother cooked a lot, and I loved being in the kitchen with her. Spain is very much a food-based culture. Life revolves around the kitchen – so it’s not so much that I have fond memories with her in the kitchen, but of the whole family, with her, in the kitchen. We would wake up and there would be breakfast on the table. Then, just as we were finishing, she would make tea, and my grandfather would come back from the fields for a cup. We’d go out into the garden to pick vegetables for lunch, then she’d prepare the meal. After lunch, we’d go sit outside to watch people passing. And then it would be time to make dinner …

This dish is nothing too particular, and although it was her signature dish, I could have picked any number of other signature dishes – crayfish that we fished ourselves; lamb – she often cooked with lamb from the farm.

I’ve always had a preference for poultry though, especially paired like this with apple and vinegar – I love the sweet and sour feeling of it all. All of us – my mother, my sister, my brother – we all make this now for our families. I think it is lovely to have these flavours, these dishes that we can pass on to the next generation. My children love it too now.

Chicken pot stew with apple

This is a regular when we have friends for dinner, mostly because it tastes better the day after you cook it, so it actually makes sense to prepare it in advance. For my grandma María, this recipe used to start by going to the orchard or the barn to pick up some apples, then going to the farmyard, killing a chicken with her own hands (she could be seriously vicious … but hopefully that is not genetic), then plucking it.

Sometimes, when I give speeches about the fact that women have an unfair deal, a picture of my grandmother killing a chicken comes to mind. Women have really come a long way … at least as far as chickens are concerned.

I have further adapted this to modern times by giving instructions for cooking it (fairly quickly) on the stove. My grandmother used to cook it slowly, on an open fire.

Serves 4
6 chicken thighs, or 1 chicken cut into 8
2–3 tbsp olive oil
1½ onions, chopped into half moon slices
½ red pepper, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely sliced
3 carrots, finely chopped
Salt
2 tbsp sherry vinegar
1 bay leaf
3 cooking apples, cored and quartered

1 Salt the chicken pieces and fry them in the oil over a medium heat, turning until golden on all sides. Take them out of the pan and set aside.

2 In the same oil as you fried the chicken, fry the onions, red pepper, garlic and carrots to soften them – first over a high heat, then reduce the heat. Add a little bit of salt.

3 When the vegetables are soft, return the chicken to the pan. Wait for 3 minutes, then add the vinegar. Let it bubble for a couple of minutes, then add a glass of water (about 150ml) and the bay leaf. Cover the pan and let it all simmer for 30 minutes.

4 Add the apples to the pan, cover once again and let it all simmer for another 20 minutes until the apples are soft.

• Miriam González Durántez is a lawyer, food blogger and the founder of Inspiring Girls International. mumandsons.com.
  
• Made in Spain – Recipes and Stories from my Country and Beyond (Hodder and Stoughton) is out now