Eleanora Scarpetta Recipe Chicken Cacciatore
Keiko Bludworth
In this recipe, it's key to not allow the chicken to get hotter than a simmer, ideally no hotter than 165F. You can use almost any chicken parts, with or without skin (skin will be flabby), bones or no bones. Restaurants often use dark meat, it has more flavor and is more flexible in terms of temperature ranges. Thighs generally have two strips of fat which are easily trimmed off. Gristly tendons are more commonly found in legs rather than thighs.
The only change I would make to the recipe would be to start the tomato sauce by caramelizing the onions with salt in a little oil (this takes about a half hour), then add the mushrooms, salt and cook for a minute or two, then lower the heat to low, deglaze with a glug of marsala, allow the alcohol to steam off, then add tomato sauce (I would prefer to add peeled diced tomatoes rather than a pre-made sauce, even if the sauce were homemade.) and mount with butter and immediately mix with chicken & its liquid.
Hi Lisa, and thank you so much for replying to my question. I also was curious how they made the roll-ups instead of pieces; you told me how to make the sauce browner. I am going to change my recipe to include using more mushrooms and taking butter and immediately mix with the chicken and the liquid. Is this supposed to thicken it?
I really dislike chicken cacciatore dishes I get in restaurants that have taken the chicken off the bone or otherwise messed with the simple Italian rendition of hunter's chicken. It's a peasant dish and very delicious when it's done as the peasant creators whose hunter husbands missed getting rabbit that day, so the wife cooked chicken instead.
Marcella Hazan's recipe is similar to the one I grew up making, but Marcella's does not include mushrooms. The one I use does. I know you asked for the restaurant's version, but if you would like to hear about the delicious original they riffed off of, I have a killer recipe for it. It does require the eaters to cut the chicken into pieces off the bone, and it includes the skin and fat, which is not a bad thing in my view. This version is sensuous and primal. Umami is its name, and it's one of the best dishes I make.
The chix pieces with their skin are coated with flour and then browned on all sides first and the long cook in the tomato/veg mixture softens it and renders the fat into the sauce. The bits of skin are actually one of the loveliest things about this dish, but it takes time to render the fat and bring out that quality. (I also hate flabby, tough chicken skin, but you won't encounter that here.) This recipe also includes whole canned tomatoes and their juice which break down over the long slow cook. It is a chunky, rustic dish, but I guarantee you will like it.
Honestly, doing the whole rolling procedure will not add any flavor to the dish. It will just result in really uniform pieces of chicken. And, by not using the skin (and to a lesser extent the bone) you will lose the gelatin which would normally be in the sauce, giving it a rich, thick, silky mouth-feel. I'd try Crepes' recipe first.
The main reason restaurants don't give out recipes is because people don't realize how different restaurant cooking is compared to home cooking. They par-cook then chill dozens of ingredients along with prepping raw foods (like mushrooms) -all in anticipation of order which may or may not come. You can wind up making one plate of lasagna, or 56 plates of it. -And they all have to be identical. (customer service and your account both demand this) So, for a typical restaurant, they have some chicken marked off on the grill but mostly raw, several tubs of sauces simmering in a warmer, a big tub of chilled caramelized onions, and a mini salad-bar's worth of diced and sliced raw items. (plus spices, jarred condiments, pickles, etc.) Most of this stuff can be used tomorrow if no one orders it today.
As I told you, I don't like the idea of fat, gristle or skin which is why I liked this recipe so much. I didn't have to weed through the chicken to make sure I wasn't eating anything unetable TO ME. i ate all of it which was very delightful. I would have to ask them if they left the bone in. That would be interesting.
Alex and I love making this recipe for Sunday lunch because it is a classic chicken preparation that lends itself to being shared leisurely with family and friends amid much chatter in a relaxing weekend moment.
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