This is one of my favorite winter chicken dishes. When it’s cold and damp outside, I crave big-flavored sauces and stews. This dish is basically a chicken cacciatore with many adaptations to make the sauce even richer and more flavorful. While the list of ingredients may sound like a jumble of strong flavors, they mellow when cooked slowly into a wonderful blended sauce that I could happily eat all by itself. This is excellent served with plain couscous to soak up the extra “goosh”.
Note: Vietnamese fish sauce, or Nuo’c Mam, is an anchovy-flavored liquid used constantly in Vietnamese cooking. It is a very important ingredient to this dish. After slow cooking, you won’t taste the flavor of fish at all, yet the fish sauce brings out a dark richness to the tomatoes that I haven’t recaptured in any other way. Many Asian groceries carry it; my current favorite is the One Crab brand, which is among the milder versions of this sauce. If you can’t find Nuo’c Mam but want to try to achieve a similar flavor, you might try using 1 to 2 teaspoons of Worcestershire Sauce, which also contains anchovies.
Sicilian-Style Chicken Cacciatore
3 lb. chicken pieces washed and patted dry, with skins
3-4 T. olive oil
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 handful dark raisins
1/4 cup pine nuts (optional)
1/2 cup pitted black olives (kalamata are good; supermarket canned black olives are too salty and bland)
1 28 oz. can plum tomatoes, chopped with juice
2 T. Vietnamese fish sauce
2 T. capers, drained (optional)
In a large deep saucepan, heat olive oil over medium-high heat, then brown chicken pieces on both sides until golden brown. Remove to a plate. Add onion slices to pan and cook until they turn golden and begin to acquire brown edges. Return the chicken to the pan with garlic slices, raisins and pine nuts (if using) and fry for another minute or two.
Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Turn heat to medium-low and simmer with lid ajar for about 40 minutes, stirring occasionally. Alternatively, cover tightly and cook in a preheated 350-degree oven for 40 minutes. Chicken should be extremely tender and sauce will thicken somewhat. If you wish to thicken the sauce right before serving, remove chicken pieces to a plate or bowl and boil sauce hard for a few minutes to thicken. Then pour sauce over chicken to serve.
