Tana Ramsay’s Chicken Cacciatore

I have been a little obsessed with Tana Ramsay’s cookbook, Tana’s Kitchen Secrets.  Really, what I should be, is grateful that I even have the time to be obsessed with anything other than the million projects going on in our lives at the moment…but a few minutes at night to flip through the comfort food based recipes with gorgeous photos on beautiful matte paper is all I need to make it feel like I actually did have five minutes to myself.   This book was a real find and even more so because we found it at our favorite discount (we are talking 2 books for $5) book store.

Our family loves chicken.  We make roasted chicken more nights a week than I’d really like to admit.  So when I was desperately searching for a way to mix it up using what we had on hand, I was really glad to find Ramsay’s recipe for chicken cacciatore.  Her immediate disclaimer is that this is not at all like a classic chicken cacciatore.   Being that I have never actually had chicken cacciatore I would not know.  What I do know, is that our family loved this dinner.  Even better- we made it ahead of time and left it to warm in the pressure cooker while we carted everyone from school to swimming lessons and home again.  And on those types of nights there is nothing better than dinner that is already pretty much ready when you walk in the door.

Ingredients:

2 or 3 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

salt and pepper

2 tablespoons finely chopped rosemary

1 tablespoon tomato puree

3 14.5 oz cans of chopped tomatoes (we used fresh tomatoes from the garden and supplemented it with one small can of chopped tomato)

fresh parsley or thyme

chicken (we used two bone in breasts but legs or thighs would work just as well)

6 canned anchovies, roughly chopped (we omitted this because of a shellfish allergy, and while we know anchovies are not shellfish, they contain a protein similar to that found in shellfish)

Before you start, pre-heat your oven to 375.  Pour 1 tablespoon of the olive oil into a skillet and then add the onion and garlic with a pinch of kosher salt and cook for about ten minutes over medium heat.  You don’t want your onion or garlic to brown.  Add the rosemary and stir in tomato puree.  Add the tomatoes, season well with salt and pepper and simmer for ten to fifteen minutes.  The sauce will begin to thicken.  Stir in half the parsley.

In a separate skillet heat and brown the chicken on all sides.  Remove the chicken from its pan and put in an oven save dish with a close fitting lid.  Pour the tomato sauce over, cover and bake for 40 minutes or until the chicken reaches 165.  At this point we took our dish out of the oven and transferred the contents to our pressure cooker where we just warmed the dish until we got the children home from swimming lessons.  We served ours with rice and topped with some additional thyme from the garden.

It was a super flavorful dinner screaming with freshness from the tomatoes and thyme.  Most importantly it was another way to enjoy chicken and one that we will use again this fall.