Faster Chicken Cacciatore

Chicken Cacciatore has always given me visions of slaving away over the stove, cooking chicken for hours, simmering and stirring away on a sauce for ages. In this image, by the time I sit down to eat, my hair has gone gray and I’ve started wearing one of those button around my neck should I fall and not be able to get up. What was I even making again? What year is it? Who am I!?!?!?!

This would simply not do. So I looked at a smattering of recipes and pulled together a way to make it taste authentic and slow cooked without actually slow cooking anything. Home made Cacciatore on a weeknight? Could it be true? Yes my darlings, and it is absolutely delicious!

As most recipes start, get a pan on the fire set to medium-low to medium heat. Oh and add a bit of olive oil to the pan to get warm.

Next, take a good sized onion, chop it up and add it to the pan.

There’s something about the smell of an onion cooking that makes me go all warm and fuzzy inside. Anyway, before I sit over the pan inhaling the fumes add a good bit of garlic. Of course, add as much as you like. Like I’ve said a zillion times, I like a lot so I add a lot. Oh and feel free to use fresh garlic. I would if I could find garlic that wasn’t grown in 1973 sitting in the produce section.

Now I measure out about a half cup of wine. Today I’m using white because senility is setting in at an unusually young age and I forgot to buy red. By all means, use either. I usually make it with red but it tasted just fine with white.

Once the onions and garlic are tender, translucent and fragrant add the wine to the pan.

Next slice up an 8 oz package of mushrooms. Whoa whoa whoa. For my fungi hating readers, you could always swap out the mushrooms for artichoke hearts, hearts of palm or whatever you prefer. In the end it’d probably be just fine without mushrooms and no other additions but it’d be very red and not very cacciatore-y-ish. Anywhoo, when the wine has cooked down significantly, add the mushrooms (or your Steph approved vegetable of choice) and give them a good stir and let them cook down for a little bit.

Onto our next flavors. Diced Tomato and Roasted Red Pepper. This is what gives the cacciatore its faint sweetness. I use about half a jar of peppers or this much. Chop them into a dice and add their sweet little selves into medium dice. There should be about a half cup when you’re done.

Once the mushrooms are relatively cooked thru, add the red peppers.

Dump in the tomatoes and add 1 teaspoon each of dried parsley, dried basil and dried oregano.

Give it a good stir and pop the lid on.

Doesn’t that look yummy already? Now I make all the sauce first so the veggies have some time to have a dance party and get their groove on. Let them meld together and turn into a big pot of loooooovvvveeeee. Yeah I was just singing Barry White in my head. Were you? In the meantime, get a pot of water on the stove.

While that gets going I usually clean up a bit shut up Ged and dig out my pasta. Usually I use Orecchiette but they don’t carry it at the supermarket that I shop at. So I settle on sea shells since they’re close I guess. Once that’s done, its time to dig out my secret weapon to super fast Cacciatore. Rotisserie Chicken!

Now for this recipe, I shred half of the breast meat to make this meal and shred the other half for other meals this week. The legs/thighs get tossed into the fridge for snacking or other recipes during the week. Oh and look at that. Just in time. The water is boiling. Salt it pretty liberally and add the pasta.

While that goes, give the sauce a quick stir. Other than that you could feed the cat, do some laundry, paint your toenails or whatever else floats your boat. That is until there is 5 minutes left on the timer. Snap back into action people, its chicken time! Remove the cover of the sauce pot and mother Mary, look how nicely that came together. See, singing Barry White to your food helps.

Now add the chicken and give it a nice stir. If the chicken soaks up most of the moisture, never fear. Add a few splashes of chicken stock and it’ll be just fine. Now look at that baby.

You could stop here and put this delicious mess on a grinder roll and have it as a sandwich. You could put it over rice, you could put it over polenta, you could eat it straight out of the pan. Its absolutely delicious. Oh wait, before you start binge eating the whole batch out of the pan don’t forget the Parmesan cheese. A girl has to have standards you know. Adding Parmesan to practically everything being one of mine.