About the Recipe
Braised chicken and soft polenta, the food I grew up on near Brescia. No stock, the sauce makes itself. One pot, a handful of ingredients, and time does the work. Easy to follow, nothing precious.
Ingredients
4 chicken thighs, bone in and skin on for maximum flavour
2 large potatoes
2 red capsicum
1 small onion
100g flour, for dusting
4 sprigs rosemary
half a glass red wine (about 125ml)
1 small tin tomato passata (about 400g)
200g polenta
vegetable oil, for searing
salt and pepper
Preparation
1. Season the thighs with salt and pepper, then dust in flour. Sear in a pot with a little vegetable oil until golden on the skin side. Lift out onto a rack.
2. Cut the potatoes, onion and capsicum into large pieces. Add to the same pot, salt, cook a few minutes. Deglaze with the wine and let it evaporate.
3. Sit the thighs back on top. Add the passata and chopped rosemary. Bring to the boil.
4. Pressure cooker: close the lid and cook about 75 minutes, until the meat falls off the bone. No pressure cooker: lid on firm and cook in a 150C oven for about 2 hours.
5. Rest the chicken in the pot, lid on, at least 15 minutes.
6. Meanwhile, the polenta. Boil 1 litre of salted water, add a splash of EVOO, then rain in the polenta, whisking until it thickens. Cook 25 minutes, stirring now and then. Season.
7. Polenta down first, then the chicken, then the vegetables and all that sauce.