Chicken Cacciatore With Fresh Tomatoes
The quest to decrease the tomato problem in my kitchen continues. My friends are now turning down offers of free tomatoes because they also have more than they can handle. So what am I going to do today? Well, more salsa, for starters. And then it’s chicken cacciatore time….with fresh tomato sauce.
Usually, I reserve chicken cacciatore for a way to use up leftover marinara. I just add onions and voila! Sometimes, there would be mushrooms, too, depending on the state of my wallet at that moment. This time, I’m trying to avoid tossing tomatoes into the trash because they sat on the counter for too long and have become fruit fly hotels and are leaking tomato water all over the place. Gross. And the next two days are just going to see an influx of more tomatoes because all the fruit has to come in before the rain starts…..which is just a couple of days away.
You can use any chicken parts you like. I usually use what I have. Today, I have a whole chicken or some boneless skinless breasts. Who bought those?! Oh right, it was me. If there’s any meat I really don’t buy ever, it’s boneless skinless chicken breasts. It’s like…why?! I save those things to be pounded, breaded, fried, and smothered. That’s pretty much it. Naked chicken is like canned gravy. Why bother? I was recently at a spot with a friend having lunch where I was served the driest, hardest, grodiest pieces of boneless skinless chicken breast on my salad…totally confirming my hatred of this sort of meat cardboard.
Anyway. I’m going to spatchcock this chicken, season it with salt and pepper, bake it until it’s crispy, and then serve it over some sauce on potatoes. Italian comfort food at its best. I don’t stew the chicken in the sauce. I used to. But then I had it in a restaurant served with the chicken made separately and the skin was crispy and I was sold. Adding white wine to the sauce makes me feel fancy and I happen to have a half bottle of white cooking wine left in the fridge. What is the difference between cooking wine and drinking wine, you ask? Cooking wine is cheap wine or oxidized drinking wine. We’ll discuss it all later.
You can totally season your chicken however you like. I’m 100% guilty of pouring Italian salad dressing on a spatchcocked chicken in the name of efficiency when I have no time to cook, but have to cook because there was no money to order a pizza or allow a defrosted chicken to languish in the fridge one more day.
Fine, I’m guilty of it when I’m lazy, too. Happy? Well, the Italian salad dressing trick makes a very juicy and delicious chicken and goes with literally everything. It’s the real finger lickin’ good chicken the Colonel, may he rest in peace, didn’t want you to know about. There’s this thing that happens with the chicken juices and the dressing drippings that makes you want to lick the plate. Ok fine…I’ll admit I’ve mopped up that hot mess with wads of chicken. Shushit.
Splitting the chicken is a fast and simple way to conquer a whole chicken and it cooks quickly. Spatchcocking! I think I just like saying it. I cut it, using poultry shears up one side of the back and I cut the top portion of the breast at the neck end to make it a little flatter. Why poultry shears and not a knife? Because I have terrible knife skills and I’m a cheater. That’s why.
Some will cut the back completely out. I don’t bother. Mostly because I’m lazy and also because I’ll use this carcass to make stock, so I want all the bones roasted. I usually just use salt and lots of fine ground pepper because I like chicken this way in this dish. This time, I used my herbed pink salt. But feel free to add rosemary or thyme or some herbs d’provence or whatever. Serve the sauce over egg noodles, rice, mashed potatoes, or spaghetti! We did smashed baby red potatoes.
Chicken Cacciatore With Fresh Tomatoes
Ingredients
For The Sauce:
- 1 gallon pureed fresh tomatoes
- 1/2 cup olive oil more or less
- 1/4 cup minced garlic
- 1/8 cup kosher salt
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 medium onion
- 1 half stick butter
- 1 half bottle white cooking wine
- Black pepper to taste
For The Chicken:
- 1 whole chicken
- Olive oil
- Kosher salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Core and seed approximately a dozen large tomatoes. Toss them in a food processor and puree, working in batches. In a large stock pot on medium high heat, cook the garlic in the olive oil until fragrant and then add the pureed tomatoes. Bring to a boil, season with salt, pepper, and sugar, then turn down to a simmer untill all the water is cooked out, about 2 to 3 hours. Stir the sauce every ten minutes or so to prevent burning.
- Preheat the oven to 350. Spatchcock the chicken along the back, massage with olive oil, and season with salt and pepper. Bake until the skin is browned and crispy, about an hour.
- While the chicken is roasting, slice a medium sized sweet onion into wedges thick or thin depending on how you like to eat them. Cook them in a saute pan over medium high heat with the butter, stirring every few minutes to prevent burning. When the bottom of the saute pan begins to get a brown film, add the wine and cook until the liquid is reduced by a third, about 15 minutes give or take. Add the onion mixture to the tomato sauce.
- When the chicken is done, cut into serveable pieces using poultry shears (I cut the breasts in half) and serve on top of the tomato sauce.