We had friends over last night for their last time to dine with us as they are moving tomorrow. Probably not last time forever because they aren’t going that far away, but those, “of course we’ll visit”, plans do seem to get tangled in our busy lives.
Anyway, as I’ve posted before, one of Hubby’s specialties is risotto and neither of them cook that. We decided on the three-onion version for a side dish and I wanted to do an oven dish which could finish baking while he managed the risotto. I found a version for chicken cacciatore where you do the browning and initial sauce stove top, then a 375 degree oven for 30 minutes or 45 if the chicken is bone in. I was going with boneless as I didn’t want to bother with the mess of bones while eating even though bone-in does add extra flavor. The other reason for me to do an oven dish was Hubby also decided to do his Italian green beans with onions and sun-dried tomatoes. In explaining the chicken was tomato heavy, he reluctantly agreed to use only onion as I thought of an alternative. I can usually find pancetta at Publix although it’s never a guarantee. The plan was I would render the fat from the pancetta to add to the olive oil for browning the chicken and set the crisped pancetta aside to then add to the green beans. That satisfied Hubby and gave me the extra flavor boost for the chicken. The recipe I found also used carrots which I don’t normally include in cacciatore, but went with it.
The only drawback is I do like one-pot cooking when possible and I no longer have a large enough dutch oven to pull that off as I was making six chicken breasts in case anyone was really hungry. I did the stove top part of browning the chicken, removing it from the skillet to saute the thinly sliced carrots, chopped sweet peppers, onions, and minced garlic before adding the tomatoes, wine, chicken stock, and seasonings. I did let the sauce simmer for about ten minutes (my preference) before placing the chicken in a casserole dish and covering it with the sauce. I also don’t have a cover for that size casserole and used foil instead.
