I know it seems strange to be sharing a chicken recipe with you the day before Thanksgiving, but I just couldn’t resist. It’s that good. Technically I suppose you could use turkey instead of chicken, but today let’s just stick with the chicken.

In this dish the chicken is cooked smothered in red cabbage. By the time the chicken has finished cooking the cabbage has broken down into a sweet, dense sauce. We served it over polenta and it was heaven.

Chicken Fricassee With Red Cabbage
Adapted from Essentials of Italian Cooking

1 cup onion sliced very thin
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus 1 tablespoon
2 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
4 cups red cabbage, shredded fine (about 1 pound)
3-4 pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces
1/2 cup dry red wine
Fresh ground black pepper
Salt to taste

Put the sliced onion, 1/4 oil, and the garlic in a sauté pan and cook over medium heat until the garlic turns a deep gold. Add the cabbage, sprinkle with salt, and stir thoroughly until well coated. Reduce heat to a gentle simmer and cover. Cook cabbage for about 40 minutes, turning occasionally, until it becomes tender and has reduced.

Wash the chicken pieces and pat dry. In a separate pan, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat. Once oil is heated add chicken skin side down. Once browned, turn to brown the other side. Transfer all pieces, except for the breasts, to the cabbage pan. Turn the chicken over in the pan with the cabbage, add the wine and pepper. Place the lid on the pan, leaving it slightly askew to allow steam to escape, and continue cooking at a slow simmer. Turn the chicken occasionally, sprinkling once more with salt. After 40 minutes ad the breasts. Cook for about 15 minutes until tender and the meat comes easily off the bone.

Transfer everything to a warm platter and serve immediately.

Serves 4

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Categories:	Meat & Poultry • Veggies	2 Comments
Tags:	cabbage • chicken • chicken fricassee • Italian • Marcella Hazan • polenta • red cabbage

Last Sunday at Powells’ bookstore in Portland, Oregon, we were fortunate to attend a book signing by the legendary Marcella Hazan. Mrs. Hazan is to Italian cooking as Julia Child was to French cooking. We were thrilled that the octogenarian was still out and about and signing books! Namely her new memoir Amarcord: Marcella Remembers.

If you aren’t familiar with Marcella Hazan, please allow me to enlighten you. She is well-worth the enlightenment.

Born in a fishing village in the gastronomic region of Emilia-Romagna in Italy, Marcella spent her young adulthood studying not food, but science, and earned doctorates in natural sciences and biology. In 1967, after marrying her Italian-born American husband, Victor, they moved from Italy to New York.

Up until that time, she told us, she had never cooked, and her Italophile new husband loved food. But, she remembered the tastes and smells of the dishes that were prepared in her childhood home (”amarcord” means “I remember” in her Romagnolo dialect), so the scientist in her began experimenting with cooking and soon was able to reproduce those dishes. Shortly after, she started giving Italian cooking lessons in their apartment, then in 1969 she started her own cooking school. Craig Claiborne, then the food editor for the New York Times, asked her to contribute recipes to the newspaper.

We can thank Marcella for bringing Italian cooking to America. Her first award-winning book and its sequel were compiled into my personal favorite the Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, a must-read for any cooking enthusiast. Her cooking focuses on authentic, traditional cooking. When asked by an audience member at Powell’s what her secrets to great cooking were she responded in her thick Italian accent, “use only a few simple ingredients.”

One of her most popular recipes is for Roast Chicken with Lemons, a dish where you simply season a chicken with salt and pepper, and stuff the cavity with two lemons. I tell you, those roast chickens at Costco that have apparently won some award for best roast chicken have nothing on Marcella. Her recipe is simply the best darn roast chicken.

Ever.

Roast Chicken with Lemons
Adapted from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

3 – 4 lb chicken
2 small lemons
Salt and fresh ground pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Wash the chicken thoroughly in cold water, inside and out. Remove the neck and all the bits inside, then trim any loose hanging fat. Drain all the water from the inside and pat dry.

Rub generous amounts of salt and pepper on the chicken, and sprinkle some inside the cavity as well.

Wash the lemons, then soften them by rolling them with the palm of your hand on the counter. This helps release the juices on the inside. Then, with a skewer or toothpick poke at least 20 holes (through to the pulp) into each lemon.

Stuff the lemons into the cavity, then close up the opening either with toothpicks or trussing needles and string. Don’t close it up air tight or the chicken may burst during cooking.

Put the chicken breast down in a roasting pan. The chicken is self-basting, so it won’t stick to the pan. Place it in the upper third of the oven and roast for 30-35 minutes. After 30 minutes, carefully turn the chicken over (breast up). Try not to break the skin. If the skin remains intact then it will swell up like a balloon, making for a fun presentation!

Cook for another 30-35 minutes, then turn the oven up to 400 degrees and continue roasting for another 20 minutes.

Note: Save the bones, for this makes the best soup stock too!

Can you tell I was a little excited to meet them? What a grin.

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Categories:	Cookbooks • Cooking tips • Italian • Meat & Poultry	4 Comments
Tags:	chicken • citrus • Food • foodista • Italian • Lemons • Marcella Hazan • poultry • Powell's • roast chicken • Victor Hazan