Memorie di Angelina is a blog about the home cooking of continental Italy. But as our regular readers will know, every Columbus Day we feature an Italian-American favorite. This year our feature is the mysteriously named Chicken Scarpariello, or “Shoemaker’s Chicken”. While there is a traditional Neapolitan dish that goes by the same name, that dish is an utterly different quickly-made pasta with tomato sauce. The Italian-American Scarpariello is made with chicken, braised in wine and broth along with bell peppers, onions, garlic and—in a very Italian-American touch–oregano and pickled cherry peppers. Culinarily, it’s much closer to the Roman dish pollo coi peperoni (Chicken with Peppers).
Whatever the origins of Chicken Scarpariello, it’s plenty tasty. Although there is no actual cream in it, as the sauce simmers it turns beautifully creamy. The cherry peppers melt into the sauce, lending it color and a pleasant tang.
Ingredients
Serves 4-6
- 1 medium chicken, cut up into serving pieces and well-dried
- 250g (1/2 lb) ‘sweet’ Italian sausages
- 2 bell peppers, trimmed and thinly sliced
- 1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 125ml (1/2 cup) white wine
- 125ml (1/2 cup) chicken broth
- 8-10 pickled cherry peppers
- A pinch of oregano
- A few sprigs of fresh parsley, finely minced
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Olive oil
Directions
In a large Dutch oven or sauté pan, brown the chicken pieces in abundant olive oil. Remove the chicken and set the aside. then add the sausages to the pan and brown them, too. Remove the sausage and them set aside.
Add the bell pepper and onions to the pan and sauté gently for a few minutes, until the onions are translucent. Add the minced garlic and let it sauté for just a few moments, then add the wine and broth.
Bring the wine and broth to a simmer, then add back the chicken and sausage, along with the cherry peppers and a pinch of oregano. Cover and let simmer for 10 minutes. Then remove the lid and continue to simmer for 10-15 minutes more, or until the chicken has cooked through and the liquid has reduced into a sauce that clings to the chicken pieces.
Add the chopped parsley at the last minute and serve hot.
Notes on Chicken Scarpariello
Like any classic dish, there are innumerable variations of this dish. For example, not all recipes for Chicken Scarpariello call for sausage. I think it lends a nice savory touch to the dish, though. The classic Italian-American option would be those ‘sweet’ Italian sausages with fennel seed. For today’s Chicken Scarpariello, I used the long, spiral-shaped luganega sausage—the kind I remember for New York street fairs when I was a kid—cut into lengths.
Some recipes tell you to add a bit of vinegar (about 1/4 cup) along with the wine and broth. Personally, I’m not a big fan of acid tastes, and it seems to me that the pickled cherry peppers add enough acidity on their own. Not all recipes add onion and bell pepper (this one from Lidia Bastianich is a case in point) while the amount of cherry pepper varies from recipe to recipe, as does the amount of garlic. (Lidia’s recipe calls for 10 cloves!)
In the Italian-American manner, you can serve Chicken Scarpariello with pasta as a side dish if you like. Orzo, known in Italy as risoni, is a favorite choice. And like most braised dishes, Chicken Scarpariello is even better when you can make it ahead and reheat it the next day.
Why this dish took the name Scarpariello remains something of a mystery. One unlikely story has it that the bones sticking out of the chicken were reminiscent of shoe tacks sticking out of a shoemaker’s mouth. Another story goes that the dish can be ‘cobbled together’ quickly with the humble ingredients that even a shoemaker could afford. This second story is the same one told about the original Neapolitan pasta dish of the same name. My guess is that the dish was named after the pasta dish—surely first-generation Italian-American immigrants from Naples still remembered it—for the same reason. Or maybe just because they liked the name…
Ingredients
- 1 medium chicken, cut up into serving pieces and well-dried
- 250g (1/2 lb) 'sweet' Italian sausages
- 2 bell peppers, trimmed and thinly sliced
- 1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 125ml (1/2 cup) white wine
- 125ml (1/2 cup) chicken broth
- 8-10 pickled cherry peppers
- A pinch of oregano
- A few sprigs of fresh parsley, finely minced
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Olive oil
Instructions
- In a large Dutch oven or sauté pan, brown the chicken pieces in abundant olive oil. Remove the chicken and set the aside. then add the sausages to the pan and brown them, too. Remove the sausage and them set aside.
- Add the bell pepper and onions to the pan and sauté gently for a few minutes, until the onions are translucent. Add the minced garlic and let it sauté for just a few moments, then add the wine and broth.
- Bring the the liquid to a simmer, then add back the chicken and sausage, along with the cherry peppers and a pinch of oregano. Cover and let simmer for 10 minutes, then remove the lid and continue to simmer for 10-15 minutes more, or until the chicken has cooked through and the liquid has reduced into a sauce that clings to the chicken pieces.
- Add the minced parsley at the last minute and serve hot.
The post Columbus Day Special: Chicken Scarpariello appeared first on Memorie di Angelina.