Pollo alla cacciatora — hunter's chicken with olives, rosemary and polenta

meat Italian · regular · 90 min, including 50 hands-on

Chicken legs browned until the skin is crisp, then simmered in white wine and tomatoes with garlic, rosemary, sage and black olives over a base of onion, carrot and celery. Served on creamy polenta to soak up the sauce.

Ingredients for two

Method

1. Take the chicken out of the fridge 20 minutes beforehand. Pat the 4 pieces dry with kitchen paper and season all over with 4 g salt and the pepper. Slice the onion, cut the carrot and celery into 5 mm dice, peel and crush the garlic with the flat of a knife, and chop the leaves from one rosemary sprig. Tip the tomatoes into a bowl and crush by hand.
2. Heat 20 g oil over a medium-high heat in a heavy-based, 28 cm sauté pan with a lid. Lay the thighs skin-side down and the drumsticks on their sides in a single layer. Leave the thighs undisturbed for 7–8 minutes, turning the drumsticks a quarter-turn every 2 minutes. The fat will slowly render and the skin become golden brown, crisp and easy to release. Turn the thighs, brown the other side for 4 minutes, then transfer the chicken to a plate. Keep the rendered fat in the pan, discarding any excess beyond 3 tbsp.
3. Reduce the heat to medium. Cook the onion, carrot and celery for 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onion is translucent and lightly golden and the diced vegetables soften. Add the garlic, chopped rosemary, sage and bay leaves and cook for 1 minute until the garlic is fragrant but not browned.
4. Pour in the white wine, raise the heat to high and scrape up the browned juices with a wooden spoon. Reduce by half, about 3 minutes, until the smell of alcohol has disappeared.
5. Add the crushed tomatoes and their juice, 3 g salt (1/2 tsp) and the whole rosemary sprig. Return the chicken skin-side up with its resting juices. The sauce should come halfway up the pieces without covering them. Bring to a simmer, cover three-quarters of the pan and cook over a low heat for 35 minutes without turning, keeping the skin above the sauce and golden.
6. Time the polenta to finish with the chicken. For traditional bramata, start heating the 800 g water with 7 g salt in a 3-litre saucepan at the beginning of step 3; it should boil when the chicken is covered. As you cover the sauté pan in step 5, pour the polenta into the boiling water in a steady stream, whisking constantly for 2–3 minutes until it thickens and begins to bubble. Reduce the heat to low, cover and cook for 40 minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon and scraping the base every 5 minutes. It is ready when it pulls away from the sides and falls from the spoon in a thick ribbon, alongside the reduced sauce in step 7. For instant polenta, start boiling the salted water only when you add the olives in step 7. Add the polenta 5 minutes before serving and cook over a low heat for 5 minutes, stirring. In either case, take off the heat, stir in 20 g olive oil and a pinch of pepper, then cover for no more than 5 minutes.
7. After the 35 minutes, add the olives, uncover and increase the heat to medium for 10 minutes to reduce the sauce until deep red, glossy and thick enough to coat a spoon. The chicken is ready when the flesh comes away from the bone with a fork and the juices run clear. Remove the bay leaves and rosemary sprig, taste and adjust the salt and pepper.
8. Spread a bed of polenta in warm deep plates, add a thigh and drumstick per person and spoon over plenty of sauce and olives. Serve immediately, as polenta sets as it cools.

On your plate

Cooking tips

Even better the next day: prepare the chicken through step 7 the day before, then reheat covered over a low heat for 15 minutes and make the polenta fresh. If the sauce does not reach halfway up the chicken in step 5, or starts sticking as it simmers, add 50–100 g hot water; it will reduce in step 7. Instead of polenta, toss 500 g potato wedges with 20 g oil, 3 g salt and a rosemary sprig, and roast on a tray at 200°C for 40 minutes, turning halfway through. For Shabbat, cook the chicken through step 7 the day before. Serve with those roast potatoes, also made ahead and reheated at 180°C for 15 minutes while the chicken warms, or pour the previous day's polenta into an oiled dish, cut into 2 cm slices and reheat in the same oven for 15 minutes. Shred leftover chicken into its sauce for rigatoni two days later. For the Roman in bianco version, omit the soffritto and tomatoes: after browning, cook only the garlic and rosemary for 1 minute, then add the wine, 1 tbsp white wine vinegar and 150 g water instead of the tomatoes. Simmer in the same way; olives are optional and not traditional in the Roman version. With a whole chicken of 1.4–1.6 kg cut into 8 pieces by the butcher, brown in two batches and add an extra half-tin of tomatoes. Add the two breast pieces only for the final 20 minutes to keep them moist; there will be chicken left for rigatoni two days later.

Equipment : heavy-based 28 cm sauté pan with a lid, 3-litre saucepan for the polenta, whisk, wooden spoon

A hunters' dish from central Italy, especially Tuscany and Umbria: an onion, carrot and celery soffritto with garlic, rosemary, sage, white wine, tomatoes and black olives, served over polenta as in northern Italy.