Pollo ai Funghi
When winter is really starting to bite, this recipe is not only perfect, it's mandatory. The sauce and chicken, gently braised together, create an intensely meaty flavor and almost scandalous velvety texture. When served over creamy polenta, it only needs a bright salad next to it and it satisfies an entire crowd. Plus you can do so much of it in advance it's a perfect dinner party dish. But it also works for just Andrew and I, cooked on a lazy Sunday when I know we need to rely on leftovers for weeknight dinners and lunches.
Obviously a close cousin to the famous chicken cacciatore (or hunter's chicken) the recipe for this chicken seems to have merged with an insanely delicious mushroom ragu that my family makes, which I promise you is coming. But this recipe is so rustic, and so close to the cacciatore, that I can't help but picture it decades ago on a candle-lit dinner table in a hunter's home in the Appenines, where mushrooms are so fiercely prized and hunted. I'll save my stories on mushrooms for that ragu recipe, but suffice it to say that mushrooms, especially porcini, mean a great deal to my mother, her family, and now my family (except for my brother, Tomas, who despises them with the passion of a thousand suns.)
I did some research and cacciatore, much like ragu, it is one of those types of recipes that isn't the "correct recipe" to someone unless it's their mother's version; a viewpoint that, based on the subject matter of my blog, I applaud. In the beginning, it probably had less to do with an actual recipe (or hunter) and instead represented a type of braising preparation of fried chicken or meat and vegetables. So it stands to reason that this is a family/mushroomy riff on cacciatore.
My mother remembers her grandmother's version to be drier than the one we make today. When Silvia moved to the states, she couldn't find fresh porcini. Neither could I, by the way, unless I was willing to spend a small fortune at fancy markets in NYC's West Village. So the recipe evolved and she used dried porcini and the soaking broth to impart all that woodsy flavor. It's not a sacrifice though, mushrooms actually intensify in flavor from drying, so you only need a handful of the dried variety. She uses affordable fresh mushrooms, added towards the end of the process, for texture.
SERVING DETAILS
6 servings, great with creamy polenta and a bright salad
INGREDIENTS
- 40 g of dried porcini mushrooms
- 1 whole chicken chopped into it’s parts (breast, thighs, wings and drumsticks, the butcher should be able to help with this, and you can use the carcass to make a great stock while you cook your chicken) or a family pack of skin-on and bone in 3-4 thighs and 3-4 drumsticks
- 2 medium yellow onions, diced
- 2 cloves of garlic, finely diced
- 250 g of fresh mushrooms, sliced. Whatever mushrooms are available and look good at the market (chestnut, cremini, shiitake whatever!)
- 1 can of chopped tomatoes
- Olive oil & salt
METHOD
- Set the porcini to soak for about 2 hours in a medium bowl, covered with plenty of water.
- When the porcini are soft and reconstituted, remove them from the liquid, reserving all the soaking water and chop coarsely.
- Strain the soaking water through a piece of cheesecloth, filtering out all the sand and grit, and top up with water so that it reaches 2 cups of liquid. Put both liquid and mushrooms aside.
- With a paper towel, pat dry your chicken while you heat a very large, heavy bottom saute pan with high sides over med/ med-high. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the pan.
- A few pieces at a time, sear each piece of chicken in the pan crispy and deep golden brown on all sides. When seared, remove each piece and put aside, leaving the delicious chickeny oil in the pan.
- Lower the heat to med-low and add the onions and a pinch of salt to the pan. Saute until they are just turning light blonde and translucent. Add the garlic and saute for another minute or so until soft.
- Add the porcini to the pan, and saute for another 2 minutes. Then add the reserved porcini water, and another pinch of salt.
- Simmer over medium heat until reduced by half, about 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile, in a separate fry pan, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil and saute the fresh mushrooms until browned. Careful not to overcrowd the mushrooms here, or they will steam and not brown, you can do these in a couple batches if needed.
- Add the sauteed fresh mushrooms, the tomatoes and a generous pinch of salt to the pan with the porcini and stir. Nestle in all the chicken in one even layer so that each piece is mostly submerged, ladling some of the sauce over the pieces sticking out. Adjust the heat so that it’s at a very gentle simmer.
- Cook until the sauce darkens to a rich brick red and oil pools around the edges, about 1 hour. Stir every 10 minutes or so as the mushrooms tend to fall to the bottom and stick, but gently so that you don’t tear the chicken.
- Serve by itself or spooned over creamy polenta.
