Tuscan chicken cacciatora with red wine, olives and orange
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Chicken cacciatora with red wine, olives and orange
Our version of pollo alla cacciatora, “hunter’s style” chicken, skips the tomato. The chicken is marinated in red wine and herbs, slowly cooked with a soft base of vegetables, then finished with olives and a little orange. A perfect Sunday dish for a crowd, and even better reheated the next day.
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Marinating: 1 hour
- Cook Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours 45 minutes
- Yield: 6 servings
- Cuisine: Italian
- Diet: Dairy-Free, Gluten-Free, Low-Carb
Ingredients
For the chicken
- 1 medium chicken, cut into small pieces (ask your butcher to do this)
- ½ bottle (375 ml / 1½ cups) good red wine
- A good pinch each of dried rosemary and sage, or Tuscan herb salt (salamoia)
- Salt
- 3 celery stalks
- 3 carrots
- 1 onion
- A handful of fresh sage (about 10 leaves)
- A small bunch of parsley
- 5 garlic cloves
- Olive oil
- 1 bay leaf
- A handful of black olives
- Juice of ½ orange and a little orange zest
For the stock
- 1 liter (4 cups) water
- 1 celery stalk, 1 carrot and 1 onion
- 1 good stock cube
Instructions
- At least 1 hour ahead (or up to 24 hours), marinate the chicken pieces in the red wine with a good pinch of dried rosemary and sage and some salt, and keep in the fridge. If you can find salamoia, the Tuscan herb salt, use that instead.
- Make the stock: simmer the water with the celery stalk, carrot and onion (whole or in large pieces) and the stock cube for at least an hour.
- Coarsely chop the remaining celery, carrots and onion together with the sage and parsley, using a mezzaluna or a knife.
- Drain the chicken well, reserving the wine.
- Heat a generous amount of oil in a large pan and brown the chicken pieces on all sides. Watch out for spitting oil!
- Add the chopped vegetables and cook over high heat for a few minutes, stirring well.
- Crush the garlic cloves (leave them whole), add them to the pan and cook until the vegetables are soft, 10–15 minutes.
- Add 2 or 3 ladles of stock, partly cover the pan and cook over low heat.
- When the liquid has almost evaporated, add a ladle of the wine from the marinade.
- Keep cooking slowly, alternating stock and wine, for another 30–40 minutes (the time depends on the chicken and the size of the pieces).
- When the chicken is almost cooked (soft when tested with a knife, but not yet falling off the bone), add the bay leaf, olives, orange juice and a little zest. Don’t overdo the zest: a few strips of peel are plenty.
- Keep cooking, alternating stock and wine, until the chicken is completely tender and comes off the bone easily.
- Remove the bay leaf before serving.
Notes
Make the stock while the chicken marinates, or use 1 liter (4 cups) of good ready-made vegetable stock. The dish is even better made a day ahead: cool, refrigerate and reheat gently.
I made this for a friend’s birthday dinner, and I doubled the recipe, as I was cooking for 10 adults. The only change I made was to use all drumsticks, and everyone loved the dish! The flavors of the orange, olives, sage, rosemary, and red wine compliment each other beautifully.