So tonight I'd planned Chicken Cacciatore. I like to do these dinner-and-a-movie nights. Tonight we'll have this while watching Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing, which Danny Aiello and an Italian restaurant figure into heavily.
I have probably made CC only three times in the 30 years we've been married. I know for a fact that the last time was over 15 years ago, because it was at our former home in So Cal. No reason for the lapse except that my repertoire includes literally hundreds, if not thousands, of things I can riff on be they old faves or one-of-a-kinds because it's more satisfying creatively to go rogue on ingredients than follow a recipe or do things over and over. I can make anything taste good, and if I repeat something twice in one year that's a lot.
Like most things I cook for this dish I have no recipe, and I need no recipe. I loved my mother's version and would cleave toward that with these ingredients: wine, tomatoes, red and green bell peppers, oregano. I actually don't think I've had chicken cacciatore made by anyone else.
But for yucks just now I googled the dish to see how others make it, thinking that, given a name like Hunter's Chicken which is what the Italian name translates to, there are probably 100 ways to go about it. And of course, I was right, there are, and many people have posted some pretty darned unappetizing pictures of their dishes. One picture that made me howl was meat and sauce served on top of spaghetti with a sprig of mint (where there was no mint, only dried basil and oregano, in the dish). I wouldn't take that person's word for ANYTHING.
Anyway, lots of dreck out there but I did find one fairly scholarly write-up, a comparison of many masters' versions, including Hazan, Delia Smith, Jamie Oliver and the like, which led to one food writer coming up with her own idea of perfection that was shared in The Guardian newspaper. It includes a picture that is by far the most attractive version I saw, too.
It's so well done I thought I'd share it.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2013/sep/12/how-to-cook-perfect-chicken-cacciatora
