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!

My almost-first cookbook and spaghetti bolognese

What was your first cookery book? Can you remember? Have you still got it?

Those were the questions posed by Foodie Quine on her blog; I thought if I could find my first cookery book I would also make something from it.

I don't think I had any cookery books growing up but I loved my mum's main cookery book that all her cakes seemed to come from; some pages were coming loose as she had had it for a long time. I can't remember what that book was called or if she still has it, perhaps she will be able to remember?

I didn't really cook at all even when I left school and went off to Germany to be an au pair; I started collecting recipes then, but I wrote them down in a little notebook, which my au pair 'mum' Gila bought me in a local bookshop, and which I have still got today. I guess in that sense, this is my first ever cookbook:

The first recipe in it is a pasta bake. The entire recipe runs: "Melt grated cheese in 3 tbsp. marg and flour, half litre milk. Cook and drain pasta. Grease oven-proof dish. Fill with pasta, pour sauce over top. Cover top with breadcrumbs and dot with flakes of butter. Can also add ham. Bake for 30 mins at 200C." I actually remember making this for the children I looked after - they liked it (which is why their mum told me how to make it) but I think it must have tasted very bland, especially without the optional ham!

I'd completely forgotten until just now that my first 'real' cookery book was given to me as a gift by Gila when I left her employment at the end of my gap year to start university (I was going to study German so had deferred my place for a year to spend some time in Germany first). The book is called "Artusi" and is a book of Italian recipes, but as it is entirely in German I am ashamed to admit that I have never actually used it. It got put to one side when I went off to university (I lived in catered halls and didn't really cook for a few years) and then was at the bottom of my cookery book pile for a long time. It's only now that my cookery books have a nice new home - my boyfriend built me a bookcase just for cookery books while I was away on holiday, how amazing is he?! - that I saw it again and realised with shame that I had never used it.

I assumed it was a random German book and just looked it up and am even more horrified that I've never used this book - according to Amazon,

"First published in 1891, Pellegrino Artusi's La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangier bene has come to be recognized as the most significant Italian cookbook of modern times. It was reprinted thirteen times and had sold more than 52,000 copies in the years before Artusi's death in 1910, with the number of recipes growing from 475 to 790. And while this figure has not changed, the book has consistently remained in print. Although Artusi was himself of the upper classes and it was doubtful he had ever touched a kitchen utensil or lit a fire under a pot, he wrote the book not for professional chefs, as was the nineteenth-century custom, but for middle-class family cooks: housewives and their domestic helpers. His tone is that of a friendly advisor - humorous and nonchalant. He indulges in witty anecdotes about many of the recipes, describing his experiences and the historical relevance of particular dishes. Artusi's masterpiece is not merely a popular cookbook; it is a landmark work in Italian culture."

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 I never realised Gila had given me such a significant cookery book - so I pledge here and now to use the book very soon! It may take a while - and a dictionary- to figure out some of the recipes as I haven't spoken German for a while but the book can no longer sit neglected on my shelf. I'd be interested to know if any of my readers have come across this book before?

So, when I started planning this blog post I hadn't actually spotted Artusi so made something from a different cookery book. I had a student cookery book towards the end of my time at university, which for at least a year was my only recipe book. I can't remember the exact name or who wrote it, but it had very simple recipes. One thing I remember making, that I particularly enjoyed, involved pouring a can of cream of chicken soup over a chicken leg and cooking it in the oven - I think that was it! After I left university I decided I didn't need the book any more so no longer have it in my collection.

This book, "Cookshelf Italian", is the first cookery book I think I actually bought and my first 'proper' i.e. non-student, in English (!) cookery book that I actually remember using and cooking decent meals from. I bought it in Woolworths - which shows how old it must be! - I think towards the end of my undergraduate degree. In fact the date inside the front cover is 2000 which sounds about right - I would have been 21 at the time.

There are a few recipes that I remember making a lot from this book; one is the original version of the recipe that developed into this and the other is spaghetti Bolognese. Now I make spag bol in different ways depending on the ingredients and time available, but when I learnt how to make it, it was from this recipe. So I thought I'd make it again and share the recipe with you all.

You need:
serves 4
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 carrot, peeled and chopped (though I left it out this time)
1 stick celery, chopped (I also left this out)
50g cubed pancetta
350g minced beef
400g tin chopped tomatoes
2 tsp dried oregano
125ml red wine
2 tbsp tomato puree
salt and pepper
350g dried spaghetti

Heat oil and fry the onion and garlic then add the carrot and celery if using.

Add the pancetta to the pan and fry until browned

Then add the mince and fry until browned.

Add the tin of tomatoes, puree, herbs and red wine and bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer for 30-45 minutes until most of the liquid has gone. Season to taste. Meanwhile cook the spaghetti.

Serve on a bed of spaghetti.


I am sending this to My First Cookbook hosted by Foodie Quine.
I'm also sending it to Pasta Please as the theme this month is long pasta like spaghetti. The challenge is hosted by Green Gourmet Giraffe this month on behalf of Jacqueline of Tinned Tomatoes.