My slogan for 2015? “A chicken in every pot.” Somebody’s already used that? Well, mine comes with recipes to get you started. Take that, Herbert Hoover, and you too, Henry IV!
It’s about as basic as cooking can get: chicken cooked slowly in a sauce. Really, this is one of those dishes that is more technique than actual recipe. Once you’ve run through it a couple of times, you’ll find that you can adapt it quite easily to almost anything you have in your refrigerator or pantry.
This is a dish that usually takes about an hour to make, most of it spent daydreaming while the pot bubbles on the stove — just enough work to make you feel like you’re actually cooking. The recipe scales up quite nicely, so you can make a double or triple batch for a weekend dinner party and still have enough left over for an after-work survival meal. And, yes, like most stews and soups, it’ll actually be better the second (and third) time around.
Go Italian with a spin on chicken cacciatore from the Emilia-Romagna, flavored with pancetta, red wine and tomatoes. Or you can go Cal-Med and make it with fennel, mushrooms and green olives.