Catch a Tory

I've never cooked chicken cacciatore before ... but tonight I tackled it (without benefit of a recipe) ... and it turned out pretty well.  Today I bought four chicken thighs for $4.35 and decided to try my hand at this dish.  Here's how it went:

Rinse the chicken thighs and dry them thoroughly.  Salt and pepper them liberally on both sides.  Heat a large cast iron skillet over high heat.  Add a good olive oil (I actually used peanut oil tonight ... I couldn't find the olive oil) and heat until smoking.  Add the chicken thighs and cook them until well browned.  Remove the thighs to a plate and add one well chopped onion ($0.30), three slivered garlic cloves ($0.25) and one well diced Italian pepper ($0.50).  Then add a good sprinkling of red pepper flakes and some fennel seeds to taste (I like a lot of them).  Put a big can of good whole tomatoes ($1.69) in a big bowl and squeeze them to a pulp and then add them to the frying pan.  Add a good pinch of salt and some more black pepper grinds, a palm-full of dried parsley flakes, a bay leaf, and a good pinch of oregano.

Cook this sauce for about ten minutes and then return the chicken thighs to the pan along with a can of drained artichoke hearts ($1.89) or just artichoke heart bottoms and any juices from the thighs.  Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook another fifteen minutes or until the chicken is real tender.  (A few things I could have added but didn't -- some chopped-up sun-dried tomatoes and a good splash of red wine.)  In a separate pot boil a good quantity of salted water and cook some cappellini ($1.29).  Serve the chicken cacciatori over the pasta with a liberal sprinkling of Romano cheese.  Enjoy.  (You pick the side entrees ... maybe oil and garlic broccolini and a balsamic-vinegar tomato salad, see: My Tomato Salad.)

So, for around ten dollars I main-course fed very generously three people (with enough left for my lunch tomorrow.)  We all said it was delicious.  Not bad for a chicken-cacciatore tyro.

Spaghetti American

By now most foodies know how to make spaghetti the highly stylized and sublimely tasty way that Italians religiously do. I also love it this way. But here I am going to offer an Americanized version. Just as imported bees have “Africanized” our native docile breed, so there is a version of spaghetti that we Americans have morphed out of the original Italian import. I will give you my interpretation here.

As per my recipe for meat loaf, start with the meat, “a mélange of ½ pound of ground beef, ½ pound of ground pork and ½ pound of ground veal is certainly a winner. However, if your taste runs to all beef … cajole your butcher into grinding you 1 ½ pounds of beef neck meat. It’s the sweetest and tastiest of all the beef cuts.” One thing that ruins my appetite for such ground meat is gristle … so make sure that your butcher is equally averse when preparing your order.

Now, place a large enameled pot on high heat and add a quarter cup of good olive oil. Dice a large Bermuda onion and sauté until translucent. Then add four (or more) minced garlic cloves and cook briefly. Next add the ground meat and brown thoroughly … breaking it apart completely. (Use a potato masher if you can’t do a good enough job with a fork.) Add one small can of good tomato paste (Red Pack) to a cleaned-out space and let it cook for a minute or so ... prior to adding four large cans of good crushed tomatoes (Red Pack or Muir Glen).

Next add a good wine-glass-full of the red wine you intend to drink with dinner (a Pinot Noir or an old-vine Zinfandel?) and the following: a quarter stick of butter, a palm full of salt, a good pinch of red pepper flakes, a tablespoon of fennel seeds, about 5 good dried mushrooms (Cremini or Polish ones), a good pinch of oregano, and a teaspoon of dried basil. (Yes, dried basil … I know that many believe that dried basil has no taste, but I strongly disagree.)  Stir real well.

Cover this concoction and gently simmer for about an hour until well amalgamated. Then, uncover and cook for about another half hour to fill the kitchen with those great childhood aromas. It is now permissible to dip a chunk of baguette into this sauce to assuage your galloping hunger and adjust the sauce’s seasonings. Finish the sauce off with a handful of chopped Italian parsley and a good drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil.

Finally, boil your spaghetti (I prefer angel hair or vermicelli, my wife likes the thicker kind) in a good amount of salted water until it is just done (a little past al dente)… and then drain well in a colander. With a pair of tongs place a small mountain of pasta on your plate, at least a ladle-full of sauce and a generous sprinkling of grated Parmesan cheese. I realize that this later ceremony diverges markedly from the way that real Italians do things, but this is the way I often like it. I also enjoy my accompanying crusty baguette with lots of butter and a tall cold beer (certainly not Peroni … how can Italians drink that panther p*ss?) or the aforementioned red wine.

(Left-over spaghetti sauce can be made into chili quite easily.  Just add a can of drained pinto or kidney beans, a handful of chili powder (you choose the number of alarms), more oregano, and a good tablespoon of cumin.  Heat and serve over rice or on some steamed hot dogs in their buns.  In some parts of the Midwest U.S., they even serve chili over cooked spaghetti.  Try topping any of these variations with diced sweet onion, diced jalapeno peppers, and a grated cheese of your choice.  How's that for morphing an Italian classic?)