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

Pollo arrosto al limone recipe

This recipe has been in my family ever since I can remember. I have seen variations of it in cookbooks from all over the world, and in various cuisine websites.

When we refer to this dish we usually call it "pollo coi limoni nel c..." alluding to where exactly it is the lemons enter the chicken.

Despite its uncouth name, this dish is always very popular. It's easy to make, and has saved my own culo in the course of many improvised meals, with the unexpected dinner guests routinely licking their fingers and the plate clean.

Image © paperogiallo

Essential to any successful dish–I'll never tire of repeating this–are natural, wholesome ingredients. Choose a healthy chicken, that's not been fed hormones, antibiotics, or animal protein. A bird that's had plenty of time to cluck about in wide, open spaces. I'm lucky enough to have a retailer nearby that sells San Bartolomeo broilers.

Real free-range chickens in the San Bartolomeo farm

The lemons I use are plucked off my mother's tree, two blocks from my apartment, in the garden I grew up in. I know the only thing I scrub off these lemons is dirt. No chemicals, no pesticides, no wax... niente.

Mamma's organic lemons

The ingredient list is short, and the instructions are brief. Please don't let them scare you with things like, 'the mark of a top chef is roast chicken.' This failsafe recipe will guarantee a perfect bird, crisp on the outside, with under it succulent, tender meat.


1 whole chicken, possibly free range
2 organic lemons
1 bouillon cube
Preheat oven at 180° C (350° F).

Burn off any excess feather stubble over the stove and give the bird a nice bath. Carefully towel dry inside and out.

Soften the lemons by rubbing them between your palms (good exercise for cleavage). Cut one lemon in half and poke holes in the other with a fork. Insert the lemons and the stock cube in the chicken, apologizing for intrusiveness.

Seal the opening shut using toothpicks (or poultry skewers) and kitchen string, and then tie the drumsticks together.

Place in a high-rimmed oven pan, and bake for 30 minutes, basting often with resulting juices.

Raise the heat and broil for another 10 minutes. To check final cooking, poke drumstick with a fork: juices should run clear.

This particular recipe's simplicity is directly proportionate to its mouthwatering goodness. It'd be a crime discarding the precious skin.

Buon appetito.

Pollo ai Peperoni - chicken and peppers recipe

I went to visit Massimo, my pollarolo on Saturday at the farmer's market. A pollarolo is a poultry vendor, but Massimo sells many kinds of meat: chicken, turkey, hare, rabbit, spring lamb, game birds, a few pork cuts, and eggs. All his goods are free range and humanely butchered. I trust his methods and his meats, because I've seen the farm where he is partner and where his animals are reared, and I have witnessed a weekly slaying there once.

Mr. E, my 3 year-old son, has grown eating Massimo's birds. I was always confident that the white meats I fed him since I began weaning him onto solids never contained a single milligram of hormones or antibiotics. I myself have been raised on Massimo Il Pollarolo's goods. My mother has been a regular customer at his little market stall covered in A.S.Roma soccer posters ever since I can remember.

I used to go with her food shopping at the market on Saturdays too, and I guess that's where the seeds of my love for food, fresh garden ingredients and colorful marketplaces were planted. I recall watching Massimo's carving knives gliding though chicken breasts and opening them like booklets; his 4-lb mallet smashing down on thick pork ribs and his bloody hands carefully wrapping complimentary sprigs of rosemary along with the meat cuts in waxed paper for us to take home. Not even on the hottest days did I ever see flies buzzing around Massimo's spotless countertop. His parcels always came handed over with a smile and a recipe tip. "Don't drown it in white wine!" he would call after us as we strolled onto the next vendor to buy the eggplant and the tomatoes.

So Staurday I showed up at Massimo's stall as it was getting close to noon. I peered at the display case while Mr. E hypnotically stared at the burly giant behind the counter juggling his chopping implements. When the last customer in line before me left, I met Massimo's gaze and smiled in the direction of the tray of chicken halves. Bright yellow skin, buttery pink flesh, crimson veins and glowing china-white cartilage. Not the anemic, squallid-looking birds packed in plastic coffins that crowd the poultry section of your supermarket, no. These were actual chickens. They had been pecking away at grass only 2 days ago, Massimo assured me (these aren't fed corn or protein meals).

"How much do you want, and what are you making?" Massimo posed his usual question as he sharpened his tools. I pondered. I didn't have anything in mind at the moment, I was hoping on my usual spur of the moment stoveside inspiration. So I just said what my mom used to answer: "Dimmi tu." - You tell me.

Pollo ai Peperoni! Of course, chicken and bell peppers, what else? A typical Roman cucina casalinga (homestyle cookery) recipe made with simple ingredients, prepared with very little fat and an resulting in an incrrrredibly delicious meat+vegetable complete meal.

So that's what I made for lunch today, pollo ai peperoni. Here is the original Roman recipe handed down to my mother 25 years ago, by Massimo himself.

One 1.5 kg (3.3 lbs) free-range chicken, washed and cut in 8 pieces (breasts, thighs, wings and drumsticks)
5 bell peppers (2 red, 2 yellow and 1 green), trimmed and cut in 1-inch squares
1 cluster of small Pachino-like tomatoes (6-7 egg-sized heirloom or cherry tomatoes), halved
1 small white onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
1 bay leaf
2 fistfuls of unbleached flour
1 glass of dry, white wine
1 ladleful of meat stock
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Dredge the bird pieces lightly in flour seasoned with some salt and pepper.

Sear them with 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet for about 15 minutes, turning to brown evenly.

In another larger pan heat 3 more tablespoons of olive oil, the garlic and the bay leaf. As the garlic begins to tan, stir in the onion. Add the bell peppers and simmer gently for 15 minutes with the wine. Then stir in the halved tomatoes and check seasoning. Some (including myself) like to add a handful of Kalamata-type olives - locally called Gaeta - at this point. But the traditional Roman recipe is olive-less.

Fold in the browned chicken and simmer for 10 more minutes, or until the meat is tender and the sauce is reduced (you can add some broth or hot water if it looks too dry).

Garnish with some fresh basil or a few leaves of fresh marjoram, and enjoy at room temp.

As with many Roman recipes, this dish is best eaten warmed the next day.


The flavorful chicken juices playfully enhance the sweet tomato and savory bell pepper sauce, so keep some crusty bread handy for sloppy scarpetta.


Grazie, Massimo.