Go Back
Braised galletto pieces in glossy tomato sauce with olives and rosemary in a wide pan on a rustic wooden table

Galletto alla Cacciatora: Hunter-Style Braised Rooster

Galletto alla cacciatora is young chicken browned and braised with soffritto, tomato, white wine, mushrooms and olives, ready in about 105 minutes and serving four.
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 25 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 10 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 45 minutes
Servings: 4 servings
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: Italian
Calories: 224
Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients
  

For the chicken
  • 2 galletto (young chicken) (about 800 g each); skin on, each cut into 6 pieces: 2 drumsticks, 2 thighs, 2 bone-in breast halves with wing
  • 1 1/2 tsp fine sea salt plus more to taste
  • 1/2 tsp black pepper freshly ground
  • 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil / 30 ml
For the sauce
  • 150 g yellow onion finely chopped
  • 80 g carrot finely chopped
  • 1 celery stalk (about 60 g); finely chopped
  • 180 g red bell pepper cut into 2 cm strips
  • 200 g cremini mushrooms quartered
  • 3 garlic cloves thinly sliced
  • 1 tbsp tomato paste
  • 120 ml dry white wine
  • 400 g canned whole peeled tomatoes crushed by hand, with juice
  • 150 ml chicken stock
  • 2 sprigs fresh rosemary
  • 4 fresh sage leaves
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 60 g pitted black olives Taggiasca or Kalamata

Method
 

  1. Pat the galletto pieces dry with paper towels and season them with 1 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp black pepper. Dry skin browns, wet skin steams.
  2. Heat the olive oil in a 30 cm / 12-inch deep saute pan over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Brown half the pieces skin side down for 5 minutes, turn them, and brown 3 minutes more until deep golden. Move them to a plate and repeat with the remaining pieces. They don't need to cook through.
  3. Pour off all but 2 tbsp of fat and lower the heat to medium. Add the onion, carrot and celery with a pinch of salt and cook for 6 minutes, stirring, until soft and pale gold. Add the bell pepper and mushrooms and cook for 3 minutes. Stir in the garlic and tomato paste and cook for 1 minute.
  4. Pour in the wine, scrape up the browned bits from the bottom, and simmer for 2 minutes until reduced by about half. Add the crushed tomatoes, stock, rosemary, sage and bay leaf. Return the chicken and any plate juices to the pan, skin side up, nestling the pieces into the sauce, and bring to a bare simmer.
  5. Cover the pan and lower the heat so only a few bubbles break the surface. Simmer for 30 minutes, until the thickest thigh reads 165 F / 74 C and the meat is tender. Don't let it boil, or the breast meat will tighten.
  6. Uncover, stir in the olives, and simmer for 10 minutes until the sauce coats the back of a spoon. Remove the rosemary stems, sage and bay leaf, then take the pan off the heat. Cover and rest for 10 minutes, taste for salt, and serve.

Notes

  • Ask the butcher to cut each galletto into 6 pieces, with the wings left on the breast halves.
  • Brown in two batches and don't move the pieces until the skin releases from the pan.
  • Keep the simmer gentle, with only a few bubbles breaking the surface.
  • Let the pan rest covered for 10 minutes before serving so the sauce settles.
  • Taste the sauce for salt only after the olives go in, since they add their own.