Yeah, yeah…Wonton’s been slacking on the posts. But fear not, she certainly hasn’t been slacking on the eating/cooking. Its in her blood, she can’t keep away...
The end of 2010 brought a lot of good culinary times. Instead of having a traditional Thanksgiving meal, the Wonton family was in Florence taking a cooking class from a very animated Italian Tony Curtis. Antonio Curtis, if you will. Our family was one of five that gathered together at In Tavola cooking school to make potato gnocchi, millefoglie, pan-roasted chicken with roasted red bell peppers and lastly, the classic, tiramisu. While each dish was absolutely delicious, I found the pan-roasted chicken dish to be particularly irresistible. It’s shockingly simple to make and yet the end result is simply melt-in-your-mouth amazing – a dish that I’ve made twice since returning from Florence. All you need is chicken (half a chicken heartily serves 3-4), 2 red bell peppers, 1 large purple onion, rosemary, balsamic vinegar and a cast-iron skillet.
Roasting the pepper: The first step is to roast the bell pepper in the oven. I would recommend doing this in advance so that the pepper has some time to cool so you don’t burn your fingers trying to peel the damn thing. Lightly rub the pepper with some olive oil and bake in the oven at 400 degrees for about 20-30 minutes, turning every once in a while so that it doesn’t burn too much on one side. Don’t worry if it looks like the pepper isn’t shrinking, it’ll deflate once you take the stem off. Once it cools down, take off the stem and cut the pepper in half to scrape out the seeds. Next, peel the skin off the pepper (you might need to use your fingernails on this one, depending on how tender the pepper is) and slice the flesh into thin 2-inch long pieces. Take the red onion and cut it into similar size pieces. Set both aside for now while you tend to the chicken.
Tackling the chicken: Heat the cast iron skillet over medium heat with 2 tbsp of butter with about 1 tbsp of olive oil and coat the pan. Take the chicken (rinsed and patted dry) and toss each piece in a light layer of all-purpose flour. Once the pan is hot, brown the chicken on both sides in the pan. The skin should be a nice golden brown before you add in the red onion, the roasted pepper and a couple branches of rosemary to top it off. Once the fixins are all in there, take your balsamic vinegar and lightly pour it over the chicken to give it a nice coating of flavor. You don’t want to drown it necessarily, but don’t be too stingy either. Let that sink in for a few minutes and then add about ½ cup of water to get the juices flowing and also make sure that the chicken doesn’t blacken on the skillet. Cover, and let the whole thing simmer on low heat for about 20-30 min. With chicken, I like to use the trial and error method. I don’t trust preset times and all that jazz, so I just cut into a piece and if it’s done it’s done. The end product should look a lil’ something like this:
To accompany this delicious bird, you might want to try grilled squash, zucchini or things of that nature. I’ve also cooked this alongside a nice pan-fried potato, or home fries, or even couscous. Whatever tickles your pickle. Really, with chicken this tasty, it doesn’t really matter what it sits next to – it will always outshine its sidekick.
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