Chicken Cacciatore with Brined Chicken

Brining Chicken

Chickens that are running around on pasture eating insects, worms, and forage have a great taste, but they also have muscle tone. Sometimes this means a tougher bird than one raised in confinement.

Brining pastured poultry is a great way to insure a moist and tender bird. You’ll want to begin brining at least 8 hours before you begin cooking, but no more than 24 hours ahead of time.

See my post on cooking moist and tender pastured poultry for brining instructions.

When you are ready to begin preparing the Chicken Cacciatore, remove the chicken from the brine, drain, and pat it dry.

This recipe originally came from a promotion for corn oil, of all things. I’ve been making it for as long as I can remember, but I’ve changed it up here and there and made it my own. Needless to say, I don’t cook it in corn oil. At our house, we have to have this served over spaghetti. This is the brand we really love and have been using for years.

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Chicken Cacciatore

This is comfort food at its best!

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Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Italian

Keyword: chicken cacciatore

Prep Time: 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour hour 15 minutes minutes

Total Time: 1 hour hour 35 minutes minutes

Ingredients

• 1 pastured chicken brined, and cut up
• 1 teaspoon sea salt *
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 cup flour or arrowroot powder
• 1 onion chopped
• 1 large pepper chopped
• 1 quart tomato juice
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 1 teaspoon basil
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• lard or your choice of fat for browning the chicken

Instructions

• Mix together the paprika, pepper and flour. Use this to lightly coat each piece of chicken.
• Heat the lard in a heavy skillet on medium heat. Brown the chicken and remove.
• Add onion and pepper and saute until soft.
• Add the tomato juice, spices and sea salt. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
• Now add the browned chicken to the sauce, and cook at a slow simmer for an additional 45–60 minutes until the chicken is done.
• Serve over pasta or rice.

Notes

*Not much is needed, because the chicken will be salty from the brine.