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Italian style Braised Chicken

My parents are moving house and I spent the afternoon over there carting rubbish and bits and pieces away. They’ve given us a second fridge (and more importantly it has a freezer, so we now have more freezer space), and this came out to our place on the last run, which was a bit late in the day. Thus I invited them to dinner.

Being a bit late, we needed something fairly quick to make, and since I’ve been reading The Silver Spoon lately (as you do with new cookbooks), I felt inspired to create something vaguely Italian. Chicken always cooks fairly quickly, so I went with that. The result was well received by all.

!/recipes/images/ISBC.jpg (Italian Style Braised Chicken)!

h2. Ingredients.

* 2 chicken breast fillets (or 4 thigh fillets)
* 1 onion
* 2 celery stalks
* 2 large carrots
* 2 cloves of garlic
* some basil and oregano ( _I used dried_ )
* some salt and pepper
* a quantity of red wine ( _I would have used white, but we didn’t have any open, and the red worked quite well – a Cabernet Shiraz, in case you want the exact flavouring_ )
* a little water
* olive oil
* a tablespoon or so of white wine vinegar
* 1 Anchovy fillet.
* some fresh (or frozen) baby green beans. (also known as string beans)

h2. Method

Dice the onion fairly finely (about 3 mm squares), and place in a fry pan with some olive oil on low heat.
Peel and chop the carrots into slices of about 4 mm thickness, then half or quarter depending on diameter, add these to the frypan. Season with a little pepper. Turn the heat up a little and sauté.
Add to that the celery, diced and the garlic, chopped very finely, and continue to sauté until softened.

Transfer the vegetable mix to a baking dish with a little olive oil.

Slice the chicken breasts in half as if filleting them (or lay flat the thigh fillets). Put some fresh olive oil in the fry pan on medium heat. Add the chicken, seasoned on both sides with salt and pepper. Brown both sides, then add the wine, vinegar, water and chopped anchovy. Boil down the liquid until almost boiled away. Turn the chicken to coat in the sauce, and remove from the heat.

Cover the vegetable mix with a layer of green beans, then place the chicken on top, and drizzle the remaining juices over everything. Cover with some aluminium foil and bake at 200C for 20 mins.

Serve with a nice glass of wine of your choosing. ( _note, it’s best not to have fairly sour Margaritas before this dish, as the sourness of the lemon does not go with the flavours of the dish_ )

posted to Italian,Recipes @ 11:47 pm

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