Pollo alla Cacciatora

I hadn’t bought a cook book for a very long time and it was only because I was feeling sorry for Jamie, seeing his cook books on the shelf of a shop in town, going for a very low price, that I didn’t want to see him falling on hard times 😉

It was then a case of what am I going to cook first from it? It was cold and wet and I didn’t exactly want to go out for hours shopping just cook something for supper. So after returning from a local butcher and off licence with the chicken and wine, I was able to get back home in the warm to start preparing. Setting up the chicken to marinade in the wine etc. was good but I think I would have preferred to leave it in the fridge overnight to really infuse the flavours.

When it came to cooking this finally, the kitchen looked like a bomb site, with the amount of bowls and pans used to prepare and cook this recipe but it was well worth it 🙂 I made enough to last the following day and it was well worth letting it reheat again slowly, as I reckon it tasted even better second time round!

According to Jamie Oliver in his Italian book,

Chicken cacciatora seems to be reasonably well known in Britain because it’s the classic pre-packed dish you find in Italian food ranges in supermarkets (which, to be honest, never taste of much). When you get the real deal cooked at home with love and passion it’s a totally different experience. It’s a simple combination of flavours that just works really well. Cacciatore means ‘hunter’, so this is obviously the type of food that a hunter’s wife cooks for her fella when he gets home from a hard morning spent in the countryside. This is also a great dish for big parties, as it looks after itself in the oven.

Ingredients:
2 kg higher-welfare chicken, jointed, or use the equivalent amount of chicken pieces
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
8 bay leaves
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
3 cloves garlic, peeled (1 crushed, 2 sliced)
½ bottle Chianti
flour, for dusting (gluten free or plain)
extra virgin olive oil
6 anchovy fillets
1 handful green or black olives, stoned
2 x 400 g good-quality tinned plum tomatoes


1. Season the chicken pieces with salt and freshly ground black pepper and put them into a bowl. Add the bay leaves and rosemary sprigs and the crushed clove of garlic and cover with the wine. Leave to marinate for at least an hour, but preferably overnight in the fridge.

2. Preheat your oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4. Drain the chicken, reserving the marinade, and pat dry with kitchen paper. Dust the chicken pieces with flour and shake off any excess. Heat an ovenproof pan, add a splash of olive oil, fry the chicken pieces until browned lightly all over and put to one side.

3. Place the pan back on the heat and add the sliced garlic. Fry gently until golden brown, then add the anchovies, olives, tomatoes (broken up with a wooden spoon) and the chicken pieces with their reserved marinade. Bring to the boil, cover with a lid or a double thickness layer of foil and bake in the preheated oven for 1½ hours.

4. Skim off any oil that’s collected on top of the sauce, then stir, taste and add a little salt and pepper if necessary. Remove the bay leaves and rosemary sprigs, and serve with a salad and plenty of Chianti.

Enjoy!

Braised Red Cabbage

Red cabbage is a good vegetable to buy this time of year. It can be pickled in vinegar but I think served hot with any meat is my preference. It is also very good with cold meat too.

The recipe I have used, has evolved over the years and I am not sure who gave it to me or where it came from, but I know, that when I was a child, we used to have it on Boxing Day with the cold turkey and ham, after we had been out into the countryside to work up an appetite.

It can be made two days in advance and kept in the fridge – it freezes well too. I try to use all organic ingredients as the red cabbages used to come from my grandparent’s garden which never had chemicals on them!

(Printable Recipe)

Ingredients:
1 Red Cabbage (approx 2lbs/1kg)
½/1lb (225g/450g) Red Onions, finely chopped
1 large Cooking Apple (approx 1lb/450g) peeled, cored and chopped small
1 Clove Garlic, finely chopped
2/3tblsp Dark Brown Sugar
2/3tblsp Red Wine Vinegar and/or Red Wine
¼ teaspoon each of Ground Cinnamon, Cloves and freshly grated Nutmeg
A little butter
Salt & pepper

1 Remove the outer leaves of the cabbage, cut and shred finely removing the hard stalk.

2 In an oven-proof large pan, melt half the butter and then put a layer of cabbage on top, then add some of the chopped onion, apple and garlic, sprinkling it with some of the sugar and spices.

3 Continue the layering until all the ingredients are in the pan, and then pour over the red wine vinegar and/or red wine. Dot with the rest of the butter and put on a lid.

4 This can either be cooked very slowly on top of the stove or in the oven at 150C/300F Gas Mark 2 or 140C Fan Oven, stirring it occasionally during the cooking time.

Enjoy!

Farewell Floyd Event – A Winning Recipe: Coq au Vin

Having waited just over a week for the judges, Julia and James, to choose their winning top 3 entries to the Farewell Floyd Food Blogging Event, I received an email from them yesterday morning, letting me know that my blog post Coq au Vin – A Tribute to Keith Floyd had been chosen as one of their Top 3 Winners, therefore winning myself a copy of ‘Floyd’s Food’ from Absolute Press. It was lovely to receive their email and kind words about my dish, first thing on a Monday morning and it made my day!

I had such great fun creating my tribute to Keith Floyd, for me and my family, and several glasses were consumed on his behalf during the cooking and eating, true Floyd style!

I was astounded by the lovely dishes the other winners and entrants had made and realised that there are other big Floyd fans out there that will miss him.

The other 2 winners were:
Going With My Gut: Kenyan Goat Feast — For Farewell Floyd: Food Blogging Event
Foodycat: Farewell Floyd – Jambalaya
both of which are fantastic recipes.

I cant wait to cook up my first dish from Floyds first publication and blog about too.

For the announcements and round-up from the judges please read the following posts:

Farewell Floyd: The Round-up
Farewell Floyd: Round-up and Winners Announced

FoodCandy Featured Blog Post – Coq Au Vin

Having had a busy week at work, I have been playing catch up on all my emails, tweets and blog posts. One nice email to receive was from the new Food Social Network – FoodCandy.

They featured my blog post “Coq au Vin – A Tribute to Keith Floyd” on the front page of their site with the following note – ‘Enjoy the celebrity!’

Coq au Vin – A Tribute to Keith Floyd

My version

Keith's version

(See also “Farewell Floyd Event – A Winning Recipe: Coq au Vin”)

After not being able to take part in the ‘Farewell Floyd Food Blogging Event’ last weekend due to feeling ill, I was so happy to read that the deadline for the competition had been extended to the 25th October, meaning I was able to take part after all!

The idea of the event is that we all cook a meal in tribute to this much-loved chef either by cooking up a classic Keith Floyd recipe, an adapted Keith Floyd recipe or a recipe of our own design inspired by, and in tribute to Keith Floyd.

Having been lucky enough to borrow my mum’s original copy of ‘Floyd on France’, I spent an evening trawling all the delicious recipes to find a true classic that I could attempt to cook for this event. I ended up deciding to cook his Coq au Vin recipe which is translated in his book as ‘Cockerel in Red Wine’.

So I set about getting all the ingredients including a decent bottle of red Burgundy as Floyd uses it specifically in his recipe and mentions that “Burgundy is supposed to be famous for Coq au Vin”.

As for my own take on this recipe, I decided to use free-range chicken from Somerset as well as local cider brandy.

Now for my gluten free twist, I used cornflour to make my Beurre Manié and gluten free bread for my Garlic Croutons. This meant that my whole family could enjoy this fantastic dish, as I cooked it in Somerset on a weekend visit home.

I hope everyone that had taken part in this event has had as much fun creating their dishes as I have with mine and I hope that others try this fantastic Coq au Vin recipe. I also hope the late, great Keith Floyd would appreciate my twist of his recipe, as he was born and raised in Somerset too!

(Printable Recipe)

Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients:
4lb (2kg) Free-range chicken joints (from Somerset preferably)
5ozs (150g) Green streaky bacon, cut in cubes
20 Small Onions
4ozs (125g) Butter
1/2 Glass Brandy (Somerset Cider Brandy)
2 pints (1ltr) Red Burgundy
1 Bouquet Garni (made with fresh Thyme, Parsley and Bay Leaves)
2 Cloves Garlic
Salt and Pepper
1tbsp Sugar
7ozs (200g) Button Mushrooms
1tbsp Cornflour
Garlic Croutons (Gluten Free)

1 Fry the chicken, bacon and onions in about 2.5ozs (65g) of butter in a large pan.

2 When they have started to brown, chuck in the brandy and flame.

3 Pour on the red wine and add in your bouquet garni, garlic, salt and pepper.

4 Bring to the boil, add the sugar, cover and simmer for approximately 2 to 3 hours or until the chicken is cooked.

5 At the end of the cooking time, heat the mushrooms in some butter.

6 Remove the chicken from the pan when it is done, putting it into a deep platter to keep warm.

7 Discard the garlic and bouquet garni, then add the mushrooms to the sauce and simmer for 5 minutes.

8 Make a Beurre Manié with the remaining butter and cornflour and add it to the sauce little by little.

9 Stir it well until the sauce had thickened.

10 Arrange the chicken pieces in the platter and pour the sauce over, garnishing with the garlic croutons.

Serve with potatoes of your choice, or crusty bread, green vegetables and/or a green salad.

Enjoy!

Competition Links:
Back to the Chopping Board: Farewell Floyd: Food Blogging Event

A Slice of Cherry Pie: Farewell Floyd: Food Blogging Event