BocelliOnline

[Marianne]

Today the weather in Santa Barbara was perfect - not a cloud in the sky and temperature 70 degrees. Perfect for planting my second crop of my vegetable garden. As I was picking off the leaves from my lettuce I thought of your 'Greek salad' and made one for dinner - but no wine to go with it.

This recipe is from “Tutta la Cucina” and thus uses metric measurements and I don’t know the conversion so I guess and it is originally for coniglio=rabbit. I am translating this recipe from Italian.

POLLO CON PEPERONI
Serves 4

1 chicken cut into pieces
50 gr butter (2-3 T as a guess)
4 cucchiai (T) olive oil
4 peppers (use red, green and yellow combo & cut into pieces - the picture shows squares)
2 anchovy filets (I omit)
2 garlic cloves (thinly sliced)
1 laurel (I omit because I have never found one)
1 rosemary sprig
Chicken broth (using bouillon cubes dissolved in hot water doesn’t seem to matter here, but then again, I have no idea how this dish is supposed to really taste anyway)
Brown the pieces of chicken with a little butter, the olive oil, the rosemary (and laural).
Salt, pepper and cook over low fire for about 1 ½ hours, bathing every so oftern with a little broth.
In another pot, with the rest of the butter and 2 T olive oil, combine the peppers, black pepper (I guess to taste, but I don’t cook with pepper) and the vinegar and cook with a low fire for 20 minutes.
Unite the peppers with the chicken, (fate insaporire= make tasty=cook together to combine flavors) for 5 minutes.

Pan-Roasted Chicken with Rosemary, Garlic, and White Wine

1 T butter
2 T olive oil
Chicken cut into serving size pieces
2-3 garlic cloves
1 sprig of rosemary (I use several as I love the chicken-rosemary combo)
salt & pepper
½ C dry white wine ( I use half the bottle & throw in 3 chicken bouillon cubes which are not called for in the recipe)
salt & pepper

Over medium heat, brown the chicken well in the butter & olive oil. (The use of olive oil with butter to brown allows you to you to cook at a higher temp. without burning the butter.)
Then add the garlic (cooking at his higher temp until garlic becomes golden in color), the rosemary, salt, pepper and wine. Cook briskly for 30 seconds, and then simmer until chicken is done (about 1 ¼ hours) (The slower you cook this, the better the taste). You may have to add water (wine for me).
When chicken is done, remove from the pan and cook down the liquid. You can remove the fat if you like (too lazy for this step) ( and the recipe calls for removing the garlic as well - which I do to my plate).

Although the recipe doesn’t call for it, I add cut up new potatoes in the final 20 minutes and sometimes baby carrots. The vegetables soak up the flavor (keep adding the wine) and I try to change every recipe into a ‘one pot deal’ as I hate cleaning pots. Actually, I hate cleaning period and am always looking for recipes that once the initial work is done, ‘they cook themselves’ so I can do something else.

Enjoy, Marianne