Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Companion Chicken Stew with Anchovies, Olives, Capers, and Zucchini

companion chicken stew with anchovies, olives, capers, and zucchini

So I made hunter chicken stew and thought hunter is cacciatore, I should make puttanesca! But puttanesca is whore, I can't have a recipe called whore stew. And I can't call it puttanesca because then it doesn't match hunter. What. A stew with meat and vegetable is pretty fancy for puttanesca, anyway. So I am calling this companion stew, because companions are fancy. You get this if you watched Firefly.

If your eyes are sharp, you may see a few cauliflower hiding in the stew above. That's because I'm thinking about plating this with cauliflower, so I can stretch this recipe from four to maybe six servings and be covered for a whole week of lunches.

Oh and, this is incredibly good.

an onion
two stalks celery
4-5 chicken thighs
2 cups water

2 lb zucchini
olive oil
2 Tbsp or half a small can of tomato paste
2-3 anchovy filets
about 20 kalamata olives
1 Tbsp capers

Peel and chop the onion, and trim and chop the celery including the leaves if they look nice. Put the onion, celery, chicken, and water in a soup pot and bring to a strong simmer over high heat. Then turn the heat to low and let simmer partially covered for an hour.

Heat oven to 500 degrees. Trim and dice the zucchini, toss with olive oil but no salt—there will be other salty things coming up. Roast for 30 minutes, you might like to give it a stir halfway through roasting.

When the chicken is done, remove it to a cutting board and set aside. Pour the remaining broth and vegetables through a strainer, set aside the broth and discard the vegetables. I usually go do something else for a while and let the chicken cool almost completely, so I can take it apart with my hands. When the zucchini's done, it can hang out in the pan until the chicken is cool enough to skin and take apart with your hands. Then cut the chicken into bite-size pieces.

Mince the anchovies. Pit the olives by smashing them open under the flat of your knife and roughly chop them.

Pour the broth back into the soup pot, stir in the tomato paste, anchovies, olives, and capers. Simmer over medium high heat until slightly thickened, about 10 minutes.

Stir in the zucchini and chicken and simmer a few more minutes until heated through. Season with salt and pepper to taste.