We found some beautiful, fresh chicken at our local market and bought it with no plans in mind. Walking through grocery stores, we’ve seen manufacturers jumping all over the organic bandwagon. Some things are safer or amazingly better when organic (organic milk is so much tastier to me than a store-brand milk), but there are clearly some questionable products. Organic or “free range” meats are not as well regulated and usually don’t mean what you’d think. Looking for meat from animals raised antibiotic-free is more telling. If they don’t give the animals antibiotics, they have to treat them better to keep them healthy.
So, we had chicken and no plan. No problem. I narrowed the possibilities down by visiting Cooking Light’s website and searched for chicken. By narrowed, I mean down to 1878 recipes. I have a hard enough time picking where to sit in a movie theater — and don’t get Jennifer started about me and parking! After three pages of chicken recipes brought to us by the letters A and B, I noticed the “Sort results by” option and selected “member rating” so the 5 star recipes rose to the top. I still only made it to page three when I clicked on Chicken Cacciatore Sicilian-Style.
Moment of admission: I’d never eaten chicken cacciatore. Neither had Jennifer. The biggest consequence of this is that neither of us would have a frame of reference when we tried the dish. Another side-effect is that my MacGyvering would undoubtably lead to a nontraditional, non-Sicilian-style cacciatore. But it sounded so good. Undaunted (despite lacking a few ingredients), I began to cook.
We only bought chicken breasts, not the variety of chicken parts described in the recipe. Somebody likes her chicken on the thin side, so I pounded them a little to get the desired thickness. In a little olive oil, I sauteed the chicken for a couple of minutes on each side in two batches. With the chicken out of the skillet, the onions and garlic went in to saute for 5 minutes.
Another moment of admission: I can’t stand celery. Makes me cringe just thinking about it. Early in college, I had the honor of judging a junior high science fair. Of the many fine projects, one still stands out vividly. The youngster gave me a little strip of paper and asked me to taste it. Stopping just short of a full-fledged gag reflex, I ripped the paper from my mouth. “Ahh, sensitive,” the young lady said as she made notes on her cute little clipboard. Still collecting data. Nice. She lost points, though, as she had nothing to cleanse my traumatized palate. What was on the paper? Urea. Why did I react so? Genetics. Some people are predisposed to HATE CELERY.
So, in place of the cup of celery, I added another cup of onions. It’s Eating Onions Together, after all. I deglazed the pan with half a cup of red wine vinegar and added a slew of other wonderful smelling ingredients. I didn’t have olives on hand, but did have capers. I also only had a can of crushed tomatoes instead of chopped, but I knew I wouldn’t know what I was missing. I placed the chicken back into the pan, brought the mixture to a boil, covered and simmered for 20 minutes. Another 25 minutes of uncovered simmering and the chicken was just right, tender enough to cut with my wooden spoon.
While the chicken simmered, I cooked some fusilli, a cute little twisting spiral shaped pasta. The recipe called for macaroni or cavatappi, but the fusilli seemed a reasonable substitute. I spooned fusilli onto each plate and dished the cacciatori over top.
Reading up on what I had created, I learned that cacciatore means hunter in Italian and that, related to food, cacciatore is something cooked “hunter-style” with tomatoes and onions. The red wine in the sauce gives the dish a tartness that was surprising and pleasant. The chicken was tender and broke apart with a fork. It also reheated nicely making several handy meals in the following days. I’m looking forward to eating this dish at an authentic Italian restaurant sometime to see how close I got it. I imagine, though, that this is the type of dish which varies with the chef as well as the chef’s mood.
September 10th, 2006
Jennifer and I recently perused Square Books on the square in Oxford, MS, home to Ole Miss, her alma mater. I noticed a cookbook called Square Table which contained a collection of recipes from Oxford restaurants. As Jennifer’s birthday was only a month away, I didn’t point it out to her and was able to surprise her with it. Several recipes were from restaurants she loved during her college days but which have since closed. We’ll certainly be revisiting this cookbook for its time-machine possibilities.
Deciding on this cookbook for dinner, we took to its pages in search of just the recipe. Jennifer had already tagged four. We decided on a baked linguine recipe that sounded divine.
We browned two pounds of ground beef (we found fresh ground chuck from our butcher’s case that was beautiful) with some freshly minced garlic, about double the requested two cloves. Once browned, one can each of crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, and tomato paste, a teaspoon of salt and two of sugar were stirred in and the wonderful mixture was allowed to simmer for 30 minutes.
It’s worth pointing out that this recipe does not call for any pepper. Pepper is such a ubiquitous spice (and one of our personal favorites) that it’s absence was noticed. Trusting the recipe, we followed it and were curious to see how it turned out.
We started working on the linguini while the sauce simmered. Twelve ounces of linguini boiled to al dente. With the pasta in the pot, we turned to a very special component. A brick of cream cheese, 16 ounces of sour cream, and two bundles of green onions (how could we kick off Eating Onions Together without some onions!?), chopped. These were mixed together, smelled (followed by an excited discussion), and set aside.
When the pasta was ready, we drained it and added it to a 9×13 pan. Jennifer received a beautiful Le Creuset pan recently and was excited to give it a try. It was a little less than 13″, so we used most of the pasta, filling the pan about halfway. The cream cheese, sour cream and onion mixture was spooned on top of the pasta and topped with the meat sauce.
After 20 minutes in the oven at 350, we removed the pan and added 1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese and eyeballed 1/2 cup of grated parmesan. Then it was back into the oven for 5 minutes to melt the cheese. We let it set the suggested 10 minutes before serving. Being a big Alton Brown fan, I’m familiar with his frequent saying, “your patience will be rewarded.” This is also why I’m suspicious of any meal that can be whipped together in 30 minutes. I have to say that taking photographs makes this waiting period much easier to bear.
We paired this meal with a chianti, the 2003 Classico made by Cecchi. When in doubt, a good chianti will compliment a pasta dish. To be honest, despite my love of wine, I’ve never had the olfactory skills to drink one and pick out the hints of lilac and elm bark with clear mineral tones. Mineral tones?! I have always had this suspicion that people just sit around a table (drinking way too much wine) and make these things up. However, I’m keeping an open mind and will try to hone my appreciation and super-sniffer skills. Does anyone have any recommendations for books or resources on wineology?
How was the linguini? Well, I think a rating scale based on “would we make this again?” is the best measure of a recipe. It balances taste and difficulty together.. if it’s torture to make, it’d better taste awfully good. The baked linguini is definitely a keeper. Jennifer and I discussed the similarities with lasagna while we were preparing it and while we were eating it, as well. Its components are somewhat similar to Jennifer’s lasagna recipe: pasta, meaty red sauce, and a cheesy layers. This baked linguini has one layer of each that all blended together a little during cooking and completely during the meal. The baked linguini was an involved production, but not as time-consuming as lasagna. It was definitely worth the effort.
The creamy layer was a huge hit, the first thing Jennifer commented on. It was a pleasant departure from a ricotta-based component. We didn’t miss the pepper in this dish. The seasoning in this dish were predominantly from the garlic and onions. At Alton’s recent seminar, he commented that he had minimized his spices down to about six items (although he didn’t list them). He went on to say that he was more concerned with simplifying food, echoing the sentiments of Hippocrates: first do no harm. I think this dish lives up to this wisdom.
September 1st, 2006