Pan-Roasted Chicken with Sweet Sausages and Peppers

Snow Day...or rather Ice Day!  Middle Georgia doesn't get much snow or ice so when we do, the whole town literally shuts down.  A one dish meal sounded pretty good after a day of no power and board games. 

This recipe sounded easy but once I started looking at the components including peperonata rustica..soffrito (which takes six hours to make)....I figured I better start early.  I made the soffrito and roasted the peppers which were used in the peperonata rustica on Sunday to assemble the components needed.  The chicken also calls for a twelve hour brine and since I started late on Sunday, I decided to assemble everything I needed that night for the next night's dinner after a work day.  Mother nature had different plans and I ended up having all of Monday at home.  I can't say it still wasn't nice to have everything I needed for dinner despite being home all day.  Lately most of my free time has gone to assembling dishes from Ad Hoc so it was nice to have everything already prepared.

The first step was making the soffrito.  I diced Spanish onions and cooked them very slowly in oil for about two and half hours.  The onions caramelized and started to separate from the oil.  I then added a puree of plum tomatoes and cooked for two and half more hours.  The finished dish after draining the oil off, which separates, is soffrito.


I roasted a combo of red, yellow, and orange bell peppers in the oven for the peperonata rustica, peeled them, and cut them into strips.

The next step was to make the Ad Hoc chicken brine of honey, salt, herbs, and lemons.  I then cut my whole chicken into eight pieces.  Let me just say here that I have always had a horrific time trying to butcher a whole chicken.   Well, I am so happy to report that I wasn't the problem at all...it was my poor, cheap, dull knives!  My in-laws gave me an awesome Christmas present which was a new Chef's knife and two ceramic knives.  I pulled that chef's knife out and cutting up that chicken was a breeze.  I am so glad it's not me! 

I brined the chicken for twelve hours and was ready to get to work on dinner.  The peperonata rustica is assembled by combining the roasted peppers, the soffrito, chicken broth, and piment d'Espelette which is ground dried Chile peppers from Spain that had to be ordered over the Internet.  The mixture is simmered over the stove for thirty minutes and is ready for serving.  

I browned the chicken in canola oil with sweet Italian sausages.  The browned chicken and sausages are added to the peperonata rustica and finished off in the oven.  The finished dish was topped with parsley and chives.

For so many steps, I was a little disappointed in my presentation.  The 1/2 cup of soffrito which was used in the pepper dish, which then became a component of the chicken and sausage dish took six hours so I guess I had higher expectations.  Despite the presentation, the flavors were really nice.  I love roasted peppers and the combo of the sweet peppers with the chicken and sausage really accentuated one another.  The chicken was delicious and I am definitely learning the benefit of using the brine in the chicken dishes.  Even the white breast meat is juicy after using the brine and it is usually the most prone to be dry.  While the exact steps of these recipes may not be something I would repeat for time's sake, I think the same dish could be assembled fairly quickly with similar results as long as you used the brine.