Chicken Cacciatore

It's definitely feeling wintry here and some thick, cold fog set in.  We made Chicken Cacciatore (adapted from a Delia Smith recipe) for dinner tonight to use up some of the last fresh tomatoes of the season.  Making a tomato-based dish at my in-laws' also invites hilarious toh-may-toh vs. toh-mah-toh accent comparisons.  I forgot that I had intended to blog about it and so it was consumed without any photographic evidence.  Imagine, if you will, a red stew with mushrooms and some golden brown lumps.  Those lumps are the chicken.  It was surprising easy and tasted both rich and healthy (in the good way).  [Jack even co-cooked, which made preparations fantastic.  Jack cooks quite often, but he's a lone chef due to mild perfectionism.  I'm not giving up on him, however, because everything about cooking is more fun together.] I would highly recommend this classic recipe of Italian origin.  Here's how we made it:

* 1 casserole dish for stovetop cooking with a lid *
- Roughly 1 free range chicken, jointed into 8 pieces
- 2 onions, chopped roughly
- 10 mushrooms, quartered (this is optional... and where I went rogue on Delia)
- 2 mashed garlic cloves
- 1 tbs. of fresh rosemary "leaves" (really spikes) bruised and chopped
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 cups of dry white wine 
- 1 tbs. of white wine vinegar
- 7-10 tomatoes, peeled (poured over with boiling water to make the skin separate) and chopped
- 1 tbs. tomato paste.


1)  Prep the tomatoes first for sure, or used canned tomatoes.
2)  Heat a glug of olive oil to shimmerine in the casserole dish.  Salt and pepper the chicken.  Brown chicken in batches. Transfer to a plate.
3)  Here I browned the mushrooms in the remaining oil, draining off excess liquid.  Transfer to a plate.
4)  Add more olive oil if necessary and add in onion.  Turn heat to medium and sauté the onion until clear and browning at the edges.
5)  Add the garlic, and combine for 1 minute.
6)  Add rosemary, bay leaf, wine, vinegar, tomatoes and tomato paste. Season liberally.
7)  Simmer the sauce for around 20 minutes uncovered.  It will reduce by 1/2.
--If you're making brown rice, as we did, this is the point to start it--
8)  Add in the chicken and mushrooms. Stir to combine and make sure chicken is covered.
9) Cook for about 40 minutes (in my opinion, a half-hour would have worked as the chicken was a little overcooked)

Buen provecho!