Pollo alla Cacciatora

I've been verbal in regards to misconceptions about Italian food and how foreigners mutilate Italian food names. I've written a lot about how some dishes change over time and evolve into new recipes after crossing oceans. The usual suspects being fettuccine Alfredo, spaghetti with meatballs, chicken or veal parm, shrimp scampi... One that seldom is mentioned in the list of Italian-American dishes is chicken cacciatore.

What Americans call chicken cacciatore is a broiler bird cooked in a spicy tomato sauce with mushrooms and herbs. In Italian, pollo alla cacciatora is a completely different dish. And when I say different, I mean made in a baffling amount of different ways.

With the premise that Italian cuisine is regional,  a characteristic of which is applying twists on many of its dishes, modifying them according to what part of the boot-shaped peninsula they're being cooked in, let me say that there is no correct cacciatora recipe. Each region, each village, even families in the same tenement building cook different versions of a dish. Same can be said for pollo alla cacciatora, which changes enormously according to where it's made.

For example, the people of Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany make their cacciatora with tomato sauce and varying amounts of herbs. Marche, Abruzzo and Umbria cooks omit the tomato element and prepare theirs with garlic and purple olives. In other parts of Italy this recipe is made by not sectioning the chicken in breasts, drumsticks, wings etc, rather by deboning and chopping the meat into small chunks and slow cooking it with in a supple wine, herb garlic and anchovy stew.

Whatever the recipe, the name alla cacciatora – in the hunter's style – denotes a humble, rustic preparation, that requires little skill, lots of patience and good quality ingredients.

I personally grew up eating the "in bianco" version (no tomato) that's traditionally made in Rome. Here is the recipe I learned from my mother and which I like to make for Sunday lunch.

Ingredients
5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
1 whole free range chicken, eviscerated
Sprigs of fresh rosemary
Bunch of fresh sage
1 tbsp all-purpose or rice flour
1 glass of white wine + more for stewing
1/2 glass of white vinegar
Salt and black pepper

Method
Burn away any remaining feathers and fuzz by scorching the bird over a live flame on the stove. Wash the bird, pat dry and section into 6 or 8 parts. I leave the skin on, but you may choose to remove it.

Heat the oil and garlic in a wide, heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. The garlic should not burn.

Place the chicken parts in the pot, season with salt and pepper and crank up the heat to brown evenly. Add the rosemary and sage, browning the meat for a few more minutes to sear evenly.

Sprinkle the flour, stir and then splash* the vinegar and wine to deglaze the pot.

*The verb, "sfumare" is a great Italian cooking term. In order to add flavor, cooks add a liquid of some sort (broth, wine, liqueur) in the initial phases of cooking to the heated pot. This operation releases steam, and triggers otherwise trapped flavor compounds. Another reason for doing this is to deglaze the pot. The sugars normally released by cooking meat caramelize on the bottom of the pot. They are precious sugars!
Splashing wine and vinegar will melt the sticky flavor bomb contained in the caramelized poultry sugars and do magic to your dish.

Once deglazed, stir the chicken parts to coat with the drippings. Add more wine, enough to drown by half the chicken parts.

Adjust seasoning, reduce the heat, cover with a tight-fitting lid and cook for 20-25 minutes. Should the chicken lose moisture during this time, add 1/2 glass of warm water. The bird is done if when piercing the thigh juices run clear.

Serve immediately after uncorking the vino.

Buon appetito!

Images courtesy of AIFB

Where to Eat in Testaccio (minus the offal)

Rome's Testaccio neighborhood has long been associated with so-called quinto quarto dishes, traditional delights made from the leftover parts of grazing animals (including tripe, sweetbreads, lungs, nerves, tail, intestines, and liver).

But it's not all organs in contemporary Rome's working-class wonderland.
Testaccio has grown hipper by the decade and is now home to upbeat nightlife, museums and dance clubs. It also has its share of very good offal-less gourmet destinations.

Here's my shortlist of places to find great Testaccio meals while taking a break from the innards frenzy. Continue Reading ➔

Best cucina romana in Rome

Roma — home to cucina romana — has plenty of places where folks can score a decent plate of typical local pasta. But finding the best places is an exact science. After extensive research (including card-carrying access to the plus-size kingdom) I've prepared a detailed list of city's signature pasta dishes as well as some of the spots that serve the best of the best. 
Continue Reading ➔

Hot Cities Hot Chefs on TV

I was recently invited to guest appear on a new TV show called Hot Chefs, Hot Cities, the production called me as cucina romana consultant for the episode shot in Rome.

I spent the day with Ishai Golan, the host, famous for his popular show Street Food Around the World, which airs on NatGeoAdventure Channel, eating great food at one of my favorite restaurants and chatting with the fun crew. I don't know when the show will air, but Ishai contacted me and said the rough cut is great.

I can't wait to see it!

Cacio e pepe recipe

To hell with the diet. I made cacio e pepe tonight.

This typical Roman pasta dish is a simple cheese, black pepper and starch combination, and a hallmark of the Testaccio district, the early 1900s housing project that developed around the now defunct abattoir, in the southern part of the city.

Pasta cacio e pepe is enjoying a moment of popularity, everyone's crazy about the old cucina povera quick fix. Restaurants in Italy and overseas are sometimes charging eyebrow-raising sums for a plateful. But on a par with aio e oio, cacio e pepe has always been a reliable and expeditious solution in case of sloth, self-invited last minute guests, or for post fornication midnight munchies.

Image © senzapanna

One of the best types of pasta to use for cacio e pepe is fresh tonarelli all'uovo, a thick and squared-section noodle made with eggs, flour and love.

That said, 400 g (14 oz) of the largest size durum wheat spaghetti you can find will do just fine
1 cup Pecorino Romano cheese, grated
Lots of coarsely ground black pepper
E basta. (no olive oil, no butter, no cream)

Cook the pasta until al dente in 1 gallon of lightly salted water. Remember, fresh pasta cooks much quicker than the dried kind.

In the meantime grate Pecorino cheese and grind the pepper.

Loosely drain the pasta, saving more starchy cooking water.

Toss the cooked pasta into a large warmed bowl, adding handfuls of cheese and freshly ground black pepper, and adding more of the saved cooking water to blend. Using a wooden spoon, stir vigorously until creaminess ensues.

Don't skimp on the pepper, lash away––the condiment should be quite spicy.

Uncork the red wine and quietly devour at tongue-burning temperature.

(Diet can resume tomorrow)

Carbonara recipe

I'm going to quote myself.

I know, it sounds boldly presumptuous. But I'm going to do it in order to introduce a recipe–which is the topic of my quote–and thus invalidate my quote. Convoluted much? Please, keep reading.

Two years ago I wrote a post listing the most off-limits foods to serve at a meal, taking into account everyday ethical choices, idiosyncrasies, eating whims and food snobism. One of the items on that list was Carbonara.

Here's the quote. I described it as, «Easy dish but so hard to make well. The danger between obtaining "scrambled eggs" and "quick setting cement" walks a very fine line.» One other fact I failed to mention is that the eggs in properly prepared carbonara are essentially raw.

That said, I'd like to share the recipe as one of my culinary strong points, and overrule my carbonara embargo. I should do this because some folks have never tasted the real carbonara (I've heard of chefs that make it with heavy cream, béchamel... mayonnaise, even!). Others don't cook it because they can't overcome the anxiety of figuring out correct heat and timing, factors that divide carbonara into "good" carbonara, and "awful" carbonara. And some people simply freak out about the raw eggs.

I'd like you to read on, and possibly make some at home tonight. The ingredients for carbonara are not hard to find.

Make some, and then you can decide to ratify or reject the carbonara moratorium.

In the meantime, the usual historic note. I'll make it short.

Carbonari were 19th century freedom fighters called 'charcoal burners' perhaps because of their camouflage black face paint (carbone = coal). The revolutionary secret society's goals were patriotic and liberal, and they played an important role in Italy's Risorgimento.

Some believe that the dish was once popular with these fugitives who lived on the mountains near Rome, because the ingredients were easily portable and cooking was fairly uncomplicated. Some others attribute the birth of carbonara to American allies putting breakfast of bacon and eggs on pasta.

Whatever the origin, this dish is a cucina romana stalwart.

To make the real rebellious carbonara for 4 you'll need:

500 g (1.1 lb) spaghetti, I also make it with rigatoni or any thumb-length, ribbed tube pasta
200 g (1 cup) guanciale, cubed or thinly sliced in strips (can be substituted with unsmoked pancetta or bacon)
1 egg + 4 yolks
1/2 cup each Pecorino Romano and Parmigiano Reggiano, grated
Freshly ground black pepper

Bring a gallon of cold water to a rolling boil, adding a fistful of salt when the surface of the water begins to tremble. Cook the pasta until it is al dente. Do. Not. Overcook.

While the pasta boils, sizzle the strips or cubes of guanciale in a hot skillet for about 10 minutes over a low flame, until the fat is translucent, crisp and barely browned. Remove skillet from the stove, discard the rendered fat, blot the cooked pork on kitchen towels and keep aside.

In a large serving bowl, whisk together the eggs, yolks, grated cheeses and pepper. Blend well into a yellow paste. I use a fork for this.

Tricky part.

When the cooking timer rings, using tongs, fish out the pasta from the boiling water, and immediately toss it into the bowl with the eggy mixture, place the bowl over the pot of boiling water and blend vigorously using your fork. This way you're cooking the egg AND coating the pasta, clever you! 

You don't want the egg to set with the heat of the pasta (that's frittata) you want to evenly coat it, while cooking. 

If you see the sauce is too dry you can add a slug of starchy cooking water and keep blending the silky delight. Taste and add more salty cheese and ground black pepper, if necessary. 

Garnish with the fried pork. Done.