chicken cacciatore

Recently I got myself a copy of Gourmet Today, edited by Ruth Reichl. This book is huge, let me tell you! I was actually a bit scared of it's size, lol. If this cookbook fell of the counter, I think it would leave a dent in my floor. So what do you do with a cookbook of this magnitude, of over 1,000 pages? You go finger flipping and find something that fits your budget! I knew I actually wanted to cook up a tasty main dish using chicken as I had some in the fridge, but wasn't sure what exactly. I was super excited that this recipe for chicken cacciatore that I found didn't require me to run out and buy anything crazy at the store. I think I had almost everything already that the recipe called for, except for a few things, in which I then modified the recipe just a touch. Overall, I was thoroughly happy with the turnout of this recipe, in regards to taste and flavor, and especially how moist the chicken stays. Plus, it didn't take all afternoon to make. It still probably took about an hour, maybe start to finish, but it was worth the time to get such good results of the flavors simmering together. Top it off, making my kitchen smell pretty good.

Chicken Cacciatore

Ingredients:

about 2 pounds of chicken (I used about a pound of each of the white and dark meat as that is what I had on hand already, but you can use what you prefer.)
about 2 teaspoons salt
about 1 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 (28-oz) can whole tomatoes in juice (can chop up the whole tomatoes if you wish)
1 cup chicken stock or chicken broth
about 6 servings of cooked rice or pasta

Directions:

Season chicken with salt and pepper and set aside. Heat oil in a frying pan or skillet and toss in about half the chicken into the pan and continue to brown. Make sure to turn the chicken over atleast once during the browning process. I think I did two batches of the chicken, (one white and one dark meat batch) roughly about 10 minutes each. Once chicken is brown, transfer chicken to a dish to rest.

Next, turn heat to about medium and add in chopped onion, bell pepper, and garlic to the skillet. Cook, stirring occasionally and scraping up the yummy chickeny brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Continue cooking, until onion and garlic are golden brown, probably about 10 minutes. Add chicken broth, and stir, cook and simmer until liquid starts to reduce/bubble a bit. Then, add tomatoes with their juice and simmer, breaking up tomatoes some while stirring it. Simmer about 5 minutes and then add the chicken back into the in sauce.

Simmer, loosely covered, until chicken is cooked through, roughly 30-45 minutes, depending on cut and type of chicken. Just note, the darker meat takes longer to cook than the white meat. Season with additional pepper and salt. Serve on top of cooked rice or noodles.