Easy Chicken Cacciatore — The Italian One-Pot at Fifty Days Remaining

Fifty days on the sticky note on the fridge. I’d been crossing out the old number with a thick black marker every Saturday morning before my shift at the writing program and writing the new number underneath, and the math was doing something strange to my sense of time — the weeks were both faster than weeks usually are and slower than weeks usually are, depending on which countdown I was paying attention to in any given hour. The two countdowns were nested inside each other now. Vanderbilt early action goes in November first, which was thirteen days off. Cody comes home November seventeenth, fifty days off. Both Saturdays. Both standing at the end of October like a pair of doorways.

Sunday I made chicken cacciatore in the Dutch oven because rustic Italian one-pots are how I cope with countdowns — the kind of dish that wants you to chop a lot of vegetables, sear a lot of meat, and then let the oven take it from there for the better part of an hour while you do something else with your hands. Bone-in skin-on chicken thighs from the IGA two-pack — eight thighs, three-something a pound, which is the cheapest non-frozen protein in the case — patted dry with paper towel, salted on both sides, and laid skin-down into the cold heavy bottom of the cast-iron Dutch oven over medium heat. Cold pan, cold thighs, no oil. The fat renders out of the skin slowly as the pan heats, and you don’t move the thighs for six full minutes. When you finally lift one with the tongs, the skin should release on its own and come up the color of strong tea with crisp edges. If it sticks, give it another sixty seconds. Skin that sticks isn’t ready yet.

Out to a plate, skin-up, while you build the sauce in the rendered fat. Yellow onion in half-moons, one green bell pepper in wide strips, half a pound of cremini mushrooms sliced thick — cremini, not white, because the deeper earthy note of the brown mushrooms holds up against the tomatoes the way the white button just doesn’t — four cloves of garlic minced, all of it cooked down for about eight minutes until the onions are translucent and the mushrooms have given up their water and started to brown. A can of San Marzano crushed tomatoes (or whichever crushed tomato is on sale — Sunday I went with Hunt’s for ninety-nine cents), a half-cup of dry red wine from the same cooking-wine bottle I’d used for the chicken francese, dried oregano, a single bay leaf, salt, pepper, and a pinch of red-pepper flakes I always forget to mention.

The thighs go back into the pot skin-up, nestled into the sauce so the skin sits above the surface like little islands, and the whole Dutch oven goes uncovered into a three-seventy-five oven for fifty minutes. Uncovered is the trick. Covered, the skin steams and goes flabby and you’ve wasted the original sear. Uncovered, the skin re-crisps in the dry oven heat while the meat underneath braises in the simmering sauce. After fifty minutes, the skin shatters when you cut into it, the meat falls off the bone with a fork, and the sauce reduces around the thighs into something glossy and dark and tasting of two hours instead of one.

Mama ate four thighs, which is double her usual count, sopping up the sauce with hunks torn from a baguette. She asked me midway through the third thigh if I’d send the recipe to Aunt Linda. I sent it on AIM that night with a long message about the cold-pan-skin-down trick because Aunt Linda has been frustrated with chicken thighs for a year, says she can’t get the skin right, and I knew this was the answer.

Mr. Briggs returned my revised Common App essay on Monday with one note in red pen on top: “This is good enough for Vanderbilt. Submit it.” I gave him both essays Monday afternoon for one final read — the rule he’d set in August was that nothing went out the door unless he’d signed off, and I’d been holding to it. Tuesday morning before first period he handed me back the stapled printout in the hallway. A small green check mark at the top of page one of the Common App essay. A small green check mark at the top of page one of the Vanderbilt supplement. Just the check marks, no words at all on the pages, every line clean. He said, “Submit Friday. I want it in before the weekend so we’re not fighting the server traffic Halloween night.” Then he walked into his classroom.

I went home and sat with the green checks on my desk for an hour. Forty-eight days remaining on the fridge sticky note when I crossed out fifty.

Cold pan, cold thighs, skin-down, six full minutes — that’s the rendered-skin trick. Here’s the rest.

Easy Chicken Cacciatore

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 40 minutes | Total Time: 55 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (about 2 lbs)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 medium yellow onion, sliced
• 1 green bell pepper, sliced
• 1 red bell pepper, sliced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 can (15 oz) crushed tomatoes
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
• Fresh parsley, chopped, for garnish
• Cooked pasta or crusty bread, for serving

Instructions

1. Season the chicken. Pat chicken thighs dry with paper towels. Season on both sides with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
2. Sear the chicken. Heat olive oil in a large deep skillet or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add chicken skin-side down and cook 5—6 minutes until golden brown. Flip and cook another 3 minutes. Transfer to a plate; do not discard drippings.
3. Soften the vegetables. In the same pan over medium heat, add the onion and bell peppers. Cook 4—5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until softened. Add the minced garlic and cook 1 minute more until fragrant.
4. Build the sauce. Stir in the diced tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, chicken broth, oregano, basil, and red pepper flakes if using. Scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan — that’s all flavor.
5. Simmer with the chicken. Nestle the seared chicken thighs back into the sauce, skin-side up. Bring to a gentle boil, then reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer 25—30 minutes, until chicken is cooked through and tender (internal temperature 165°F).
6. Finish and serve. Taste the sauce and adjust salt and pepper as needed. Garnish with fresh parsley and serve over pasta or alongside crusty bread to soak up the sauce.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 390 | Protein: 34g | Fat: 18g | Carbs: 22g | Fiber: 4g | Sodium: 680mg