Roger’s Chicken Cacciatore

 Chicken Cacciatore (Roger) 

• 1 package Egg Noodles
• 1 14.5oz Canned tomatoes
• 1 Bell Pepper
• 1 medium onion
• 1 6oz can tomato sauce
• Pepper flakes
• Salt and pepper
• Sugar to taste 
• Chicken breast, cubed (fresh or frozen)
• Minced garlic 
• Oil

1- Boil egg noodles

2- In skillet cook chicken in oil

3- Add peppers after a few minutes 

4- Once peppers begin to cook, and chicken is nearly done, add in onion and garlic

5- Add canned tomatoes and tomato sauce

6- Season with salt, pepper, pepper flakes, and sugar to taste

7- Serve chicken and sauce over egg noodles

My dad’s cacciatore is a dish that every person who ever came to our house growing up loved. I have never know cacciatore any other way, and I did not know until recently (I like to read wiki pages, don’t judge) that cacciatore is very similar to Sheppard pie in the way that there isn’t a standard recipe or set of ingredients. 

My dad’s recipe has a bright tomato flavor, with the sweetness of sugar and the mild kick of red pepper flakes that hits you afterwards. I love it served as a carb-on-carb meal (I.E. pasta with a side of a good crusty bread!) or topped with shredded Parmesan cheese.

I think this is another foolproof recipe; anyone can make it. But I will go into more detail with this one just because I love this dish so much, 

I like to start by setting a pan of water to boil. While I am waiting for it to boil, I chop the onion and bell pepper up into a large dice. My dad always made this sauce on the chunkier side, but feel free to dice them up more fine if you prefer. I heat oil up in a pan, about 2-3 tablespoons, once it’s hot I sauté the peppers and onions. 

While my pepper/onion mix is sautéing, I heat oil in another pan for the chicken. If you do not have a need to separate the chicken you can throw it in the same pan with the peppers and onions once the peppers begin to soften like my dad’s recipe says. This night it was just my husband and I, so I cubed up a few chicken breast tenders for him. Usually I would buy whole chicken breasts, but I misread the package. Oh well, it wouldn’t be a blog post from me if I didn’t make some mistake! And if you are wondering, I just went to the eye doctor a few months ago. It isn’t my eyes, okay. It’s just me. Somehow I think that actually makes things worse. Whatever, this isn’t working for NASA. It’s a blog post. Chill out. 

Now, dear reader, I don’t expect a lot from you but what I DO expect is for you to be seasoning your chicken and cooking it to have some color. If you serve your chicken and it looks as white as I do in the middle of the winter, there is a problem. At the BARE MINIMUM you need to be using salt and pepper. But if you’re reading this blog post looking guilty as hell when I call you out for having parsley and paprika collecting dust in your pantry, I think you’re due for an intervention. 

Anyway, season your chicken. I used salt and pepper while they were cooking in the pan. My parents always cook their chicken with garlic. And yes, we are a jarlic household. Get over it. So we add the jarlic to the pan, and we let the chicken get some good color.

While the chicken is cooking, and we’ve got the pasta boiling, I will add the tomatoes and tomato paste into the onions and peppers. For this recipe, I think seasoning to taste is the best idea because not everyone likes spicy, and not everyone likes a sweet tomato sauce. In the above picture you can roughly see how much red pepper flakes I added. I ended up adding about a heaping 1/2 tsp of sugar. I like to let this stay on low-medium heat, just not hot enough for it to simmer. This will continue to let the peppers and onions cook while we wait for the noodles and chicken to finish.

When the chicken looks beautifully done, the noodles are cooked, and your sauce is seasoned to your liking; we are ready to eat! My preference is to top it with some parsley, fresh back pepper, and a bit of shredded Parmesan, and to serve it with a nice chunk of crusty French bread.