Chicken Cacciatore
I love when I can label a new recipe heart-healthy. This lovely stew has a nice helping of good fat from the olive oil, olives and anchovies. And I made this with skinned and boned drumsticks to reduce the amount of saturated fat.
The bones obviously don’t make the meal contain more fat. It’s just the skinless drumsticks all seem to be boned as well.
If you don’t have to watch your consumption of saturated fats – here is a great recipe for chicken cacciatore. It uses drumsticks that still have the skin on – and haven’t been boned.
You could also use chicken breasts with or without the skin on. Chicken cacciatore is one of those flexible recipes that is very forgiving for any substitutions you choose to make.
Chicken Cacciatore
Ingredients
- 400g chicken drumsticks, skinned & boned
- tinned anchovies in olive oil
- onion, peeled & chopped
- 3 - 4 garlic cloves, grated or crushed
- 2 bell peppers, destalked, deseeded & chopped
- 150g mushrooms, quartered
- ~15 black olives
- 1 x 400g tinned tomatoes
- 250ml chicken stock
- 250ml dry white wine
- 1 - 2 sprigs of rosemary
- some sprigs of thyme
- 2 bay leaves
- pinch of Aleppo pepper or Cayenne pepper, optional
- capers, optional garnish
- salt & freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a deep frying pan. You can use the oil from the anchovies. Add in the onions and mix around well. Let the onions fry for a couple of minutes until they are a little softened and translucent. Next, stir in the chopped peppers. Let them cook for 5 minutes to soften a little, stirring them around every now and then to stop them burning.
- Push the onion and peppers over to the side of the pan and add the drumsticks to the pan. Press the meat into the pan and let it brown. Once browned, turn it over and brown the other side.
- There will usually be some bits of chicken stuck to the pan. Pour in a quarter of the wine and let the liquid help you scrape everything off the bottom of the pan. Pour in the tinned tomatoes, chicken stock and wine. Mix everything together well.
- Stir in the garlic and a good pinch of Aleppo pepper (or a mean pinch of Cayenne pepper) if using. Bring to a boil. Add in the rosemary, thyme and bay leaves. Stir in the mushrooms.
- Reduce the heat and cover the pan. Let it simmer for 25 minutes. Then, stir in the olives, cover and let cook for a further 10 minutes.
- Finally, turn off the heat. Chop up a few anchovies fillets - just 3 or 4 is enough - and stir them into the pan. Leave to cool for 5 minutes. Taste and add salt and pepper to your tastes.
- Let cool for a further 5 - 10 minutes before serving. It’s lovely with gluten-free pasta, rice or mashed potato, a few capers - if you like them.
