Chicken Cacciatore (prepared By My Hubby) Recipe

How to make it

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• Rinse & pat dry the chicken, cut into large double forkful chunks. Note: I used skinned chicken breast meat.
• In a large bowl place 1/3 of your chicken pieces, some of the cooking oil, a couple of healthy dashes of balsamic vinegar, 1 tblspn of minced garlic, and a partial squeeze of the lemon half.
• Using your hands (it is a must, in my opinion, to take every opportunity to feel the food, just be sure to wash your hands very well or use food prep gloves) fold all the ingredients together gently until well distributed and the chicken is well coated. Repeat twice more. Place all of the prepared chicken in a plastic food bag and put in the refrigerator for one hour.
• Slice the Italian sausages in 50cm (2 inch) lengths. Place a bit of cooking oil in the frying pan (avoid olive oil for this step) and bring to a medium high heat. Fry the sausage pieces just long enough to obtain a slight caramelization (browning) on their skin. Drain and set aside.
• Slice bell pepper (capsicum) into strips, removing inner pulp & seeds. Set aside
• Oil the bottom of the slow cooker with 2 tablspns of regular-press olive oil. Slice onions approximately ten cm (1/4 inch) thick, place evenly distributed in the bottom of your slow cooker.
• Place bell pepper strips on top of the onion. Spoon tomato paste in dollops over the pepper strips.
• Remove chicken from the fridge and fry on medium-high heat in 3 shifts and just long enough to obtain some caramelization to the chicken. Avoid burning the garlic. This should be done very fast, no more then one minute for each side of the chicken pieces. Drain chicken and place in the slow cooker. Sprinkle with chopped basil and oregano.
• Add sausages to the slow cooker on top of the chicken.
• Add 12 oz can of black olives (after draining and discarding the water) Sprinkle all with remaining olive oil.
• Pour red wine and chicken stock over all. Start your slow cooker on the high setting, and allow to reach a safe cooking heat (should take about 45 minutes). Return and set cooker on low. Go have a glass of the Chianti, and stretch your legs. This step is essential.
• Return to the hot pot in two hours and gently toss ingredients again, taking care to raise some of the liquid collected at the bottom and spoon over the mix.
• Check the pot again in another two hours. In our cooker the chicken was perfect and the sausages thoroughly cooked through. Look for the slightest tinge of pink in the sausage and for the chicken to be white all through, but juicy. By all means taste test at this time. Pour another glass of Chianti. Savor both. Salt and pepper to taste. Add red chili pepper at this time for some zing if you like. Taste again, and repeat as neccessary, but erring on the cautious side with these spices. All can be added by your guest at the table if they want more. When finished cooking, and tasting, turn off the slow cooker and let rest for one hour. Prepare the pasta to finish just before serving and just after the one hour rest time of the cacciatore. Serving may be in the normal style with platters of pasta and the cacciatore spooned over, or tossing the pasta with the cacciatore for a single dish presentation. Since we were serving buffet style we chose the latter.