Chicken and Polenta (two versions)
Friday, October 12, 2012 at 8:40PM
Margot in Chicken and Polenta, chicken, main dish

This recipe is not for the faint of heart.  Not kidding.  It’s a heart attack on a plate, so it doesn’t get made but once or twice a year.  This was the only “northern” Italian recipe my mother knew of, when we were kids.  Most of both sides of the family were from Naples, and some from Sicily, so the classic red sauce was our fare. 

My great aunt married a Gozzi, from Guilford, and his family was from Northern Italy and they passed this recipe along. 

My mother seasoned the chicken with salt and pepper, and then fried it in butter and sage, very slowly, in a cast iron frying pan.  Then she added heavy cream to the pan, and let it simmer.  That’s it for Version 1.

Version 2 is my adaptation because frying chicken is just too messy.  The result is exactly the same.  I also like to do this dish a day ahead of time, so that I can put the pan drippings into the refrigerator to chill, then scrape off the excess chicken fat.  Proceed from there the day you are serving.  

Some of you have asked for adaptations to recipes instead of cream.  You can try to make the sauce as a regular gravy, by adding some water to the pan drippings and letting them loosen and dissolve, then thicken with a flour and water slurry.  It will taste different, but how bad could it be?

Ingredients

3 lbs chicken, cut up, your choice
White pepper
Salt
Large bunch of fresh sage, leaves chopped
2-4 tbs unsalted butter
1 cup heavy cream

The Day Before:

The Next Day:

Polenta

Depending on what brand you buy, various types of polenta call for different ratios of corn meal to water.  I recommend using the ratio on the package you purchased, and I like to substitute half the water with whole milk.  

My mother taught me this fool-proof method for cooking polenta.  Much easier.  I vividly remember her standing over a pot of boiling water, laboriously sprinkling in the corn meal with one hand and stirring the water with the other. 

Polenta will hold in the pan for quite some time, so you can get it made and let it sit on the cooktop for a good hour, depending on your cookware.

Serve with the chicken and cream gravy. 

Article originally appeared on Better ingredients, better technique, better results (https://www.themessinthekitchen.com/).
See website for complete article licensing information.