Hunter's Stew (aka Chicken Cacciatore) for Two

Although I feel like I should be posting some fabulous Super Bowl party snacks tonight, I just ain't feeling it.  Sorry for that, but I hope that my topic will hit your palate in a good enough way that you'll forgive me being a party pooper. 

I was talking to my Mom tonight and learned that she and my family had gone out to eat Italian food earlier today.  My Dad ordered and had for the first time ever the Chicken Cacciatore - and he really enjoyed it.  It was interesting timing, because I had just gotten back from the butcher store down the street and had bought a couple of chicken breasts, and as luck would have it, I had been to the grocery store and had purchased mushrooms and peppers.  This is particularly interesting because I never hardly ever buy peppers.  Apparently I was picking up Dad's happy vibes from across the Oklahoma to Washington airwaves!  Yay that I did!

I think it turned out fabulous!  I don't know what classifies a dish as "real" Chicken Cacciatore but this is what my final looked like:

And then, I decided that it needed more sauce...

Oh yeah!!

Now, I have to say that I've never made this before, but I looked online for a recipe and couldn't find one that struck my fancy completely, either with ingredients or with preparation, so I just got a good feel for what it should be and winged it the best I could.  So this recipe is mine with a fair amount of influence from a couple of different recipes I found on foodnetwork.com. 

Before we get started, though according to one of the websites I ran across (I now wish I had made note of it) when doing my recipe research, Chicken Cacciatore is also known as Hunter's Stew.  Supposedly, Cacciatore means "hunter" in Italian, and when a hunter would come home without a catch, his wife would kill a chicken for the night's meal and make something like what I'm presenting to you in this blog episode.  That's what I read, but how true it is, I just have to admit that I have no idea.  I just thought it was a funny little ditty since my Padre is a fierce hunter that works hard to put food on the family table.  He's good like that.  But I'm surprised we didn't eat Chicken Cacciatore more often as children if this story is true...  (hehe)

I started this dish by heating up my dutch oven on the stove top on medium-high heat.  You can use a regular skillet for this - I just love my dutch oven. 

While that was heating, I took a baggie and put about 1/4 cup of flour in it and dropped the chicken breasts inside and tossed it around to coat the chicken with the flour.  I drizzled a little bit of olive oil into the heated pan and browned the chicken on both sides.

Once just browned (not cooked thoroughly - just brown 'em!), I removed them from the pan.  I then added a pat of butter and about 1/3 cup of chicken broth to the hot pan.  To that, I added diced onion, bell peppers, minced garlic and sliced baby portabella mushrooms.  Oh, and don't forget the salt and pepper, too!

The peppers I used were these cute little sweetened on the vine peppers that came in a bag.  They were so pretty.  I like bell peppers, but I prefer them when they have a more mild flavor than the typical full sized green ones.

Once the veggies cooked down, I added another 1/2 cup of chicken broth, a can of diced tomatoes with green chilies (with juice) and about 1/2 cup of tomato sauce and about 1 scant teaspoon of dried Italian seasoning. 

It made a beautiful sauce!

I reduced the heat down to about medium, and I placed the browned chicken breasts back into the pan into the sauce. 

Put the lid on the pan and let simmer for about 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally.  It was at this point that I put my water on the stove for the pasta.  I used thin spaghetti noodles. 

Once the pasta was done and the chicken was thoroughly cooked, I plated it up and chowed down!  It was hearty and had such a great flavor.  I enjoyed this as much, and maybe even a little more, than the traditional spaghetti meat sauce.

So here's the recipe break down:

• Olive Oil
• 1/4 cup flour
• 2 large boneless and skinless chicken breasts
• 1 tsp butter
• 1/3 cup chicken broth (you can use a dry white wine instead of broth if you'd like; I was using what I had on hand)
• 1 cup diced onion
• 1 cup chopped bell pepper (I used every color but green, and I used little ones, but you can use regular sized bell peppers - whatever is your preference is what you should do!)
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 1 8 oz container of fresh sliced mushrooms (I used baby portabello mushrooms, but regular button mushrooms would work just fine)
• salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1 can Ro-tel diced tomatoes with chilies plus the juice (you can use regular canned diced tomatoes if you don't want the extra spice of the chilies)
• 1/2 cup tomato sauce
• 1 scant tsp of dried Italian seasoning
• Thin spaghetti noodles, prepared per package instructions

Heat olive oil in skillet.  Coat chicken breasts with flour.  Over medium-high heat, brown chicken breasts on both sides in skillet and then remove from pan and set aside.  Add butter and chicken broth to pan and then add onion, bell pepper, garlic, salt and pepper.  Saute until veggies soften.  Add additional 1/2 cup chicken broth, canned diced tomatoes with juice, and tomato sauce.  Stir and reduce heat to medium.  Add chicken back into pan; cover with lid and let simmer 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Sauce will thicken slightly as it cooks.  Serve with hot cooked pasta, putting sauce over the chicken and noodles. 

This dish was surprisingly quick and simple to make.  I think the bell peppers and the Ro-Tel tomatoes did it for me in terms of adding nice flavor and spice. 

This recipe can easily be expanded to create more servings if needed, too.

I am hoping that my Dad gives this a try and lets me know what he thinks! 

Enjoy!

"With the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible."- Julia Child