Pollo Alla Cacciatora (Chicken Hunter’s Style with Noodles)
1hr
6
Introduction
Pollo Alla Cacciatora (Chicken Hunter’s Style with Noodles) is a delicious recipe Vincent and Mary picked up from the famed Royal Danieli luxury hotel in Venice, Italy. It’s amazingly simple to prepare, using the kind of ingredients that are always plentiful in my kitchen, and it tastes delicious (and at a fraction of the cost of what it probably goes for at the Danieli). Now, the recipe does call for noodles, but as pasta is never served together with a dish like this, I usually opt for steamed rice. It also recommends using polenta, which I had never tried before – but the results (after a fun and tasty trial) speak for themselves.
Here's Vincent's note from A Treasury of Great Recipes: ‘Every little Italian restaurant in the United States features its “chicken cacciatora,” but it is far from being the most popular, or even the most typical, dish in Italy. At the Royal Danieli, this chicken in its spicy sauce is served with noodles, as in this recipe, or with polenta, cornmeal mush, that has been cut into slices and fried in olive oil. It’s good either way. The real secret of this recipe’s excellence is the red wine added for the last bit of cooking. That’s the master touch.’
Steps
Sauté the chickens
Add the onions, green pepper, garlic, basil, salt and pepper and cook for 5 minutes.
Add tomatoes. Bring to a boil. Cover and cook for 20 minutes.
Add wine and simmer for 10 minutes
Cook the noodles.
Serve.
How to make
Sauté: 2 chickens, about 3 pounds each, cut into serving portions, in 4 tablespoons olive oil and 1/2 cup butter for about 10 minutes, or until golden brown on all sides.
Add: 2 cups finely chopped onion, 1 green pepper, chopped, 4 cloves garlic, minced, 1/2 teaspoon dried basil, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Cook for 5 minutes, or until onion is transparent.
Add: 1 cup stewed tomatoes and stir to mix. Bring to a boil, cover, and cook over low heat for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add: 1/2 cup dry red wine and simmer for 10 minutes longer.
While the chicken is cooking, cook: 8 ounces noodles in a pot of rapidly boiling salted water for 8 to 10 minutes, or according to package directions. Drain.
Serve the chicken and sauce over the hot cooked noodles.
Ingredients
Chickens
Olive oil
Butter
Onions
Green pepper
Garlic
Dried basil
Stewed tomatoes
Noodles