Scaloppine dishes are some of the most quintessential everyday secondi piatti in the Italian repertoire. Thin slices of meat are lightly floured then quickly sautéed in a skillet, which is deglazed with wine to form a quick and tasty sauce. Lightening fast but also super-tasty, with a touch of elegance, … Read More
Pollo in padella (Pan Roasted Chicken)
Even with nearly 600 recipes posted over ten years of blogging on Italian home cooking, I still find there are some basic recipes I’ve managed to miss. The other day a reader wrote in asking if I had the recipe for an old time family chicken dish, which, when it … Read More
Chicken Francese
October is Italian-American Heritage month, and long time readers will know that each year, around this time, we feature an Italian-American dish. This year, we’re serving up Chicken Francese, a perennial favorite you’ll find on the menu of just about every Italian-American restaurant in the country. Despite its fame, the … Read More
Scaloppine di pollo alla valdostana
I’ve always been puzzled by the popularity that chicken breasts enjoy, in particular here in the US. If you ask me, I’d nominate them as the world’s least interesting protein. Especially in this age of industrial poultry farms, chicken breasts tends to lack any discernible flavor, and then they dry … Read More
Pollo in fricassea (Chicken Fricassée)
The Italian cooking term fricassea is a bit of a false friend for English or French speakers. Like a fricassée, it usually involves a two-step cooking process of a sauté followed by a braise. But for Italians the thing that makes a fricassea a fricassea—and not, say, a spezzatino—is the … Read More
Pollo in potacchio
Pollo in potacchio is braised chicken dish that hails from Le Marche, a region that sadly I never got to visit during my years in Italy. And truth be told, I know little of its cookery, other than olive ascolane from Ascoli, which we featured on the blog some time ago, … Read More
Pollo al mattone (Chicken under a Brick)
Pollo al mattone, which I would translate roughly as “chicken under a brick”, is an ingenuous way of grilling chicken. The bird is butterflied, flattened and weighed down so it cooks quickly and evenly over hot embers. It sounds astonishingly simple—and it is—but by some sort of sorcery I can’t … Read More
Petti di pollo al burro (Butter-Braised Chicken Breasts)
In Italian Food, the 1954 book that introduced the English to real Italian cookery, Elizabeth David includes a recipe for petti di pollo alla fiorentina, or Florentine-Style Chicken Breast. She says it is a “lovely way of cooking a good chicken, and has a nice, extravagant air”. And indeed it is. But the … Read More