Chicken Cacciatore

First full week of December. Memphis doesn't do winter the way the North does — no blizzards, no below-zero, just a gray, damp cold that settles into your bones and stays there like a tenant who won't pay rent. The mail route is harder in December, not because of the cold itself but because of the volume: the holiday rush has started, and my mailbag is heavier every day, and my knee — the knee that Dr. Barker said is bone-on-bone — is starting every morning with a conversation I don't want to have.

Saturday was the dinner at the Fosters'. Rosetta and I drove to Covington — about forty-five minutes northeast of Memphis, a small town surrounded by cotton fields and churches and the kind of quiet that makes Memphis feel like New York by comparison. Harold and Dorothy Foster live in a brick ranch house with a yard full of pecan trees, and Harold met us at the door with a handshake that was firm without being competitive, which I appreciated, because I am too old for competitive handshakes and too big to lose one.

Dorothy had cooked a feast: roast chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes, cornbread, and a peach cobbler that was clearly her showpiece. Rosetta placed her cornbread dressing on the table with the quiet confidence of a woman laying down a winning hand, and Dorothy looked at it and then looked at Rosetta and said, "That smells like love." Rosetta said, "It is." And just like that, the women were allied, the way women in Southern kitchens ally — quickly, over food, with an understanding that runs deeper than words.

Harold and I sat on the porch after dinner while the women cleaned up — which is a division of labor that I know is outdated but which Harold initiated and I was not in a position to overrule as a guest in his house. We talked about Marcus. Harold said, "Your boy is steady." I said, "He gets that from his mother." Harold said, "And the music?" I said, "That's all him." Harold nodded. Then he said, "My Angela picks carefully. She picked your boy. That means something to me." I said, "It means something to me too, Harold."

We shook hands again when we left, and this time the handshake was different — warmer, longer, the handshake of two fathers who have agreed, without saying it directly, that their children belong together and that the wedding, whenever it comes, will be welcomed by both houses. Rosetta cried on the drive home. I asked why. She said, "Because Marcus is going to be happy, Earl. He's going to be happy." And she said it like happiness was a place she'd been trying to find on a map for her children for thirty years and had finally spotted the road that leads there.

Sunday I made beef stew — not a BBQ recipe, not a Mama recipe, just a cold-weather recipe that I learned from Rosetta in the early years of our marriage, when we were young and broke and stew was what you made when you had a cheap cut of beef and vegetables and time. Chuck roast, cubed, browned in batches in the Dutch oven until the fond was dark and sticky. Onion, garlic, carrots, potatoes, celery, all cut rough because stew doesn't need precision, it needs abundance. Red wine — just a cup, to deglaze and to add depth. Beef stock, bay leaves, thyme, and then into the oven at 325 for three hours, lid on, while the heat does what heat does best: transform tough things into tender things, given time.

I ate two bowls and watched the evening news and thought about Harold Foster and his pecan trees and his firm handshake and his daughter who picked my son, and I was grateful in the quiet way that December demands — not the loud gratitude of Thanksgiving, but the steady, banked gratitude of a man who has been given more than he asked for and knows it.

The stew I made that Sunday was a version of something I’ve been making for thirty years, and the cacciatore below is its cousin — same Dutch oven, same patience, same faith that low heat and enough time will transform whatever you put in front of it. After a week of heavy mail bags and a Saturday full of handshakes that meant more than I knew how to say out loud, I needed a meal that didn’t ask me for anything complicated. This is that meal. Brown the chicken, build the sauce, put the lid on, and let the oven carry the weight for a while.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 1 hour 20 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 40 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

3 1/2 lbs bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs and drumsticks
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
1 large yellow onion, halved and sliced thin
1 red bell pepper, seeded and sliced into strips
1 green bell pepper, seeded and sliced into strips
4 garlic cloves, minced
8 oz cremini mushrooms, sliced
2 tbsp tomato paste
1/2 cup dry red wine
1 can (28 oz) crushed tomatoes
1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried thyme
2 bay leaves
1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped, for serving

Instructions

Preheat and season. Heat your oven to 325°F. Pat the chicken pieces dry with paper towels and season all over with salt and pepper.
Brown the chicken. Heat olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Working in batches so you don’t crowd the pot, brown the chicken skin-side down for 5 to 6 minutes until the skin is deep golden. Flip and brown 2 to 3 minutes on the other side. Transfer to a plate and set aside. Pour off all but about 1 tablespoon of fat from the pot.
Build the base. Reduce heat to medium. Add the onion and bell peppers to the pot and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes until softened. Add the garlic and mushrooms and cook another 3 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste and let it cook against the bottom of the pot for 1 minute until it darkens slightly.
Deglaze. Pour in the red wine and scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Let the wine reduce by half, about 2 minutes.
Add the liquids and herbs. Stir in the crushed tomatoes, chicken broth, oregano, thyme, and bay leaves. Season with a pinch of salt. Nestle the browned chicken pieces back into the pot, skin-side up, so they sit just above the sauce.
Braise. Cover the Dutch oven with its lid and transfer to the oven. Cook at 325°F for 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes, until the chicken is completely tender and pulling away from the bone. Remove the lid for the last 15 minutes if you want the skin to firm back up slightly.
Finish and serve. Discard the bay leaves. Taste the sauce and adjust salt as needed. Scatter fresh parsley over the top and serve directly from the pot, over polenta, egg noodles, or with a thick piece of bread to catch the sauce.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chicken Cacciatore — The Dutch Oven Does What Heat Does Best