Chicken Cacciatore

Legend has it that the traditional version of this dish was made by the wives of Italian’s to greet them after a hard day’s hunting - cacciatore = ‘hunter’s style’.

In my house it is simply a wonderful and delicious dish to greet the entire family after a day of various activities.

The method and ingredients vary depending on different regions of Italy and mine veers towards Northern Italy with the use of white wine over red. I also invariably use smoked bacon when I don't have any pancetta in my fridge, and this works equally well. Recipes are invariably adaptable.

I use economic and flavourful chicken thighs and drumsticks here for a hearty dish, but you could just as easily use breast meat and rabbit is also often used in Italy.

You could serve with any rice, polenta or potato but I love this served on fresh tagliatelle - it's delicious, and the soft buttery ribbons soak up the sauce perfectly.

The below serves 3-4.

Chicken Cacciatore

Here’s how:

• 6-8 chicken pieces (I use thighs and drumsticks) 
• 1 large carrot 
• 3 cloves garlic 
• 5 spring onions 
• 2 rashers of smoked bacon, or 3 pancetta slices (you could also use cured ham such as Prosciutto) 
• 1 tin chopped tomatoes 
• 100g mushrooms 
• 1 large glass of white wine 
• 1 tbsp dried rosemary 
• Sea salt 
• Black pepper 
• 2 tbsp olive oil 
• Handful fresh parsley 

Firstly pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees (if you need to speed up the cooking process then 180).

Now drizzle the olive oil into a pan and place on a medium heat.

Generously season the chicken pieces all over and place into the hot pan to sear. Ideally you want them to be a little brown, turn them over to sear all round.

In the meantime finely slice the spring onions and garlic and place into a casserole dish.

Peel and finely dice the carrot and add to the dish.

Slice the mushrooms and set aside for now.

Also roughly chop the parsley and also set aside.

Once seared, add the chicken to the casserole dish.

Cut the bacon or pancetta into small squares and add to the chicken fat to cook for 3 minutes, turning once. Now add to the casserole dish.

Now add the chopped tomatoes, white wine and rosemary to the dish and stir well.

Give a final seasoning of black pepper, place the lid on top or cover with a tight foil lid and place into the oven for 1 hour and forty five minutes. Cooking at a low temperature for this long, yields really juicy, tender chicken that falls off the bone with a simple prod of the fork. As I mentioned, if you’re struggling for time, you can speed things up and turn the oven onto 180 degrees and cook in 45-50 minutes, but a longer approach gives a better, richer and more intensely sweet flavour.

For the final 15 minutes of cooking time, remove the dish from the pan, add the sliced mushrooms and stir well then return to the oven without the lid.

Serve the chicken cacciatore on top of fresh tagliatelle and throw over the parsley as a final flourish.