Tuscan Chianti Chicken Cacciatora

My Tuscan Chianti Chicken Cacciatora

There's something about the idea of spending a week in a villa in Tuscany that really appeals to me. The landscape looks beautiful, from rolling Italian countryside to the sandy beaches, the small medieval towns to the cities of Pisa and Florence, where I'd love to go sightseeing some day.

Having a villa would mean getting away from it all - I imagine a rustic farmhouse overlooking vineyards, sitting at a big wooden table with my husband as we tear into fresh bread and let a bottle of Chianti breathe.

I love the flavours from this region, from zingy lemons (and limoncello) to the earthy taste of truffles when they are grated over dishes. The red wines from this region are smooth yet spicy and Italian olive oil is renowned world wide.

I also like the simplicity of food from Tuscany. Pasta might just be served with a little oil and butter - when freshly made pasta is that good, why disguise it with a sauce? The best Tuscan food is locally produced and enjoyed according to the season; chicken is free range (probably wandering around the rustic farmhouse of my imagination) and mushrooms are foraged for.

There re two other things that stand out to be about Tuscan cooking. Food is about family, and typical dishes are prepared in large quantities to serve a big family around the kitchen table. It is also traditionally peasant cooking - in other words, cheap and not wasteful. Some of the best known Italian dishes are things that use cheaper cuts of meat, are bulked out with cannellini beans, use up stale bread (panzanella), and using local herbs and vegetables to bring out the natural flavours of the dish. These days rather than being something that is done through necessity, due to lack of money, this is something that many cooks aspire to - natural flavours coming through, cooking more economically and feeding a whole family with a robust, filling meal.

I was genuinely thinking of looking into booking a Tuscan villa for our holiday next year when I was invited to enter a competition run by To Tuscany, a website that specialises in villa rentals in that very region. It must be fate!

They asked me to create my own Tuscan-inspired recipe using typical flavours and influences from Italy, so I started to brainstorm a list of ingredients. I also thought about all the things I described above - cheaper cuts of meat, bringing out natural flavours, and a meal that could be cooked in large quantities if needed, and came up with this recipe for chicken cacciatora.

Cacciatora means 'hunter' in Italian and this is a kind of hunter's stew - perhaps something that would be waiting when they returned home from a day's hunt. It traditionally uses chicken, game or rabbit, and is cooked in a tomato-based sauce, sometimes with wine added, featuring onion and garlic, sometimes carrot or red peppers - there are various versions.

I decided to make mine even more Tuscan, if such a thing is possible, by making Chianti wine an important feature of the dish (Chianti is in Tuscany, if you didn't know). Italian olives stood out to me as a good addition, both for the colour that they give the dish and the different flavour and texture. I love balsamic vinegar and how it can bring out the flavour in dishes so decided to add a splash; my sauce was going to based on tinned tomatoes and the wine, with bay leaves and rosemary for flavour (and again they look great in the dish, though remove the bay leaf before serving).

Finally for a more modern, more indulgent twist, I sprinkled a little grated mozzarella on top of each chicken thigh just before serving, allowing it to melt - the cheese has a subtle taste but adds a little creaminess that is otherwise missing from the dish and to me just seemed to be the finishing touch. Serve the cacciatora with a hunk of fresh bread and a green salad - and the rest of the Chianti of course!

 

Tuscan Chianti Chicken Cacciatora - an original recipe by Caroline Makes

To serve four, you need:
4 large chicken thighs
pinch of salt salt
pinch of ground black pepper
1/2 bottle of Chianti
1 tbsp. olive oil
100g diced pancetta
2 bay leaves
sprig of rosemary
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
a large handful of green Italian olives
400g tinned tomatoes
generous dash of balsamic vinegar
pinch of smoked paprika
1 tsp dried oregano
50g grated mozzarella

Season the chicken and marinade in the wine for at least one hour or overnight if possible.

 

Heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry the chicken, in batches if necessary, until browned. Add the pancetta to the pan and fry until starting to brown.

Preheat oven to 180C. Transfer the chicken and pancetta to an ovenproof dish with the wine marinade. Mix in the tomatoes, garlic, olives, bay leaf and rosemary. Add a splash of balsamic vinegar, a pinch of smoked paprika and the oregano and cover the pot with a lid.

 

 

Bake in the oven for 1.5 hours; for the last 10 minutes of cooking time add the grated mozzarella on top of the chicken.

 

Serve with green salad, fresh crusty bread and the chianti and enjoy.

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I want to win a week in one of your Tuscany villas!

Spiralized Sweet Potato 'Pizza'

It's Spiralizer Saturday so for lunch today I made this recipe based on one in Ali Maffucci's book Inspiralized.

 

I changed it a bit to use different toppings and also to make the recipe quicker. Ali suggests pressing the spiralized sweet potato down inside a ramekin and refrigerating it for 15 mins, but I skipped this stage and just flattened the noodles into the frying pan and it worked just fine. It tasted really good too!

If you have any recipes that can be made using a Spiralizer, please add them to the linkup here.

To serve one, you need:
1 sweet potato, spiralized or grated
Fry Light
one egg
1/2 tsp garlic granules
salt, pepper
2 tbsp. passata
1/4 onion, diced
1/6 red pepper, diced
half a ball of mozzarella

Preheat oven or grill. Peel the sweet potato and spiralize.

 Spray a frying pan with Fry Light and add the sweet potato noodles; cook for ten minutes until softened. Add the diced onion and red pepper and fry until softened then remove from the pan.

Beat the egg in a large bowl and mix in the spiralized sweet potato.

Press the mixture down in the frying pan and fry on each side until browned. Place on a baking tray and spread the top with the passata and top with the red pepper, onion and mozzarella. Place in the oven or under the grill until the cheese has melted and enjoy.

Italian Stuffed Peppers

 

We had my boyfriend's family over for his birthday in April and he wanted a buffet meal that people could help themselves to and eat while standing up. His mum does great buffets on Boxing Day with the same dishes every year - quiche, cocktail sausages, pate etc - and so I wanted to do something a bit different. I had the idea of an Italian themed buffet which worked really well, as I could buy a lot of things ready made and could prepare some other things in advance. One thing I made was these Italian stuffed peppers.

They are very easy to make and don't take long; you can do them while you've got the oven on for something else and then serve them either hot or cold which makes them ideal for buffets. They are also a good substantial vegetarian option.

To begin, slice some red peppers in half and remove the seeds. Turn the peppers so the cut side is facing down and place on a piece of baking foil. Roast in the oven at about 180C for about 15-20 minutes until the skins are just starting to char.

I used Uncle Ben's microwave risotto rice which is brilliant - you add water to the pouch and microwave it for two minutes and have a lovely risotto. As these were for vegetarians I used the tomato and herb flavour, and added some chopped onion to the rice mixture.

 

Spoon the rice into the pepper halves, and dot with cubes of mozzarella.

Return to the oven or grill to heat through just before serving (though you could also serve these cold later) so that the cheese melts. I thought these were delicious!

I'm sharing these with the Family Foodies challenge, hosted by Vanesther at Bangers & Mash, as the theme this month is Italian food. These are fairly child-friendly to make (you could let your children add the filling to the peppers) and also to eat - it's a good way to introduce them to peppers.

I'm also entering this in the Extra Veg challenge, which is hosted this month by Kate at Veggie Desserts on behalf of Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and  Michelle at Utterly Scrummy.

Pan Bagnat

Pan bagnat is a great idea for a picnic or a lunch al fresco. The name means "bathed bread" (or "wet bread") and the sandwich is a speciality of Nice, France. It's very easy to make and you can fill it with pretty much whatever you like.

Simply take a large crusty loaf of bread - it needs to be thicker than a baguette.

Slice in half and scoop out most of the soft bread inside. Don't waste it though - this is the best bit! You can eat it as it is or dunk into soup or use to make breadcrumbs.

Spread the bread with something moist - I used red pesto from a jar on one side, and drizzled olive oil on the other, though you could just butter it.

Next start layering in your fillings. Hard boiled eggs (sliced) work well, and any raw vegetables, meats, or fish like tuna - plus plenty of salad. Here I started off with slices from a ball of mozzarella.

I chopped some olives and put them on half the sandwich - this is big enough to serve four to six people.

I layered some wafer thin honey roast ham into the sandwich. Sliced salami would also be good.

Some sliced ref pepper for a bit of crunch

And finally some little gem lettuce, with balsamic glaze drizzled over the top.

Place the top half of the bread onto the sandwich and press down so you have a tightly packed loaf.

If you're going on a picnic and don't want to take a bread knife you can slice the pan bagnat into thick slices before you go. I love how you can see all the layers of the filling - this is an easy way to get children to eat more salad or vegetables as it's fun to make and eat.

Puff Pastry Tarts with Roasted Butternut Squash and Goat's Cheese

In this lovely hot weather I've wanted to eat fewer heavy meals of the meat-and-two-veg variety - but I'm really not a fan of salad. One evening when my boyfriend was coming over and I wanted to eat sitting in the garden I decided to make some puff pastry tarts. They are very easy to make if you use ready-made pastry; you can top them with pretty much anything and just pop them in the oven. I decided to make two flavours: roasted butternut squash and goat's cheese, and bacon and mozzarella.

I found this Jus-Rol "all butter" puff pastry in the supermarket, which had different packaging and was a bit more expensive than the same brand's standard puff pastry so I thought I would give it a try. I have made my own puff pastry before but it's very time-consuming!

Simply roll out the pastry

I roasted some butternut squash when I had the oven on the night before; chop into cubes.

I layered one half of the puff pastry sheet with the cubed butternut squash and some Capricorn soft goat's cheese, which I sliced as best I could given it was quite soft. I chopped and fried some bacon and added this to the other side of the pastry sheet along with a ball of mozzarella which I tore up. Finally I drizzled some olive oil over the top.

I also made a warm potato salad to go with this dish. I boiled some Jersey royals and made a dressing from Dijon mustard, honey, white wine vinegar and oil.

Bake the pastry for about 15 minutes in the oven and sprinkle some fresh basil leaves on top.

Slice into squares and serve either warm or cold.

This made a lovely dinner al fresco and I had the leftovers in my lunchbox the next day.

I'm sharing this with the wonderfully-named Fromage Homage, for the monthly Cheese Please challenge as the ingredient to use this month is soft goat's cheese.