SALSICCIA CON (PATATE) E POMODORI AL FORNO (From the Oven to the Table, p. 20)
I have made this meal a few times, although I always have to parboil my potatoes first and then put them in 15 minutes before anything else. Not sure why, but my potatoes need a lot more cooking than the ones she uses. So the last time I made this, I thought to myself “we love this, but it ends up taking so much time. Maybe I could skip the potatoes, and serve this over pasta or polenta…”. So, that is what I did this time! I roasted cut up onions, garlic, and red/yellow peppers for about 20 minutes, then added the (cut up) sausages and grape tomatoes and roasted for another 35-40 minutes, and served it over polenta. Such a homey and comforting meal on a winter night.
I planned to make a chicken pie of some sort to use up chicken breast I had poached, so I thought I’d take a look at the current COTMs as well as the Ina Garten COTM to see if a recipe jumped out at me.
I was about to start down the Barefoot Contessa path when I this one caught my eye with a flavor combination I love — Eastern European / Russian mushroom-forward and sour cream-laced.
This is a very simple recipe: mushrooms, onions, and chicken in a sour cream-enhanced white sauce. I started by dry-sauteeing the mushrooms, then removed them and sauteed the onions and garlic, added the flour and then the milk for the sauce, and then added back the mushrooms with the chicken. I used a mix of cremini and shiitake mushrooms. The recipe calls for dill, which I don’t like, so I added scallions and green peas for freshness, plus a pinch of thyme with the mushrooms.
I borrowed a tip from the BC pot pie recipe and added some chicken bouillon and mushroom bouillon to deepen the flavor of the sauce, along with some double concentrated homemade chicken broth.
The filling is absolutely delicious, like a lighter stroganoff. I divided it into two, and used a press-in crust to top one, but ate the other with crumbled pita chips in lieu of crust (which was perfect, actually).
I can see making this again as a saucy chicken dish served with some crusty bread or kasha, or topped with mashed potato likes shepherd’s pie.
I had small eggplants so used 5 instead of 4, roasted in my large roasting pan.
Instead of 2 red chiles(Fresno??) I used a lot more. I used my favorite creamy non salty French feta. Didn’t have Greek yogurt, thought about using creme fraiche, nah. Didn’t add more olive oil at the end, not needed.
Very tasty. Wonder if it’d benefit from a few minutes in the oven at the end to get feta a bit melty.
