Chicken Canzanese

A dish that originated in 1969, this Italian Chicken dish was surprisingly easy to make and very flavourful. It is one of those pile in the pan dishes. My sister and her fiance came over for dinner last night and it is probably one of the easiest dishes that I have made for entertaining. I altered the dish to make it into a lower fat version, and as always I am sure that the taste was slightly compromised.

This serves 4 generously.
Ingredients

• 8 chicken pieces (I used skinned chicken breast and full leg pieces, with thigh and drumstick. When I make this recipe again, I will leave the skin on the breast pieces and remove it from the legs as the chicken breast was a little dry)
• salt
• 4 sage leaves
• 4 bay leaves (I used fresh ones)
• 2 cloves of garlic sliced length ways (no idea why you slice them length ways as opposed to the other way?)
• 8 whole cloves (I detest cloves and associate them with the dentist, and despite my desire to leave them out I followed the recipe and surprisingly you couldn't taste the cloves or even smell them at all)
• 4 rosemary sprigs
• 1 teaspoon of cracked pepper
• 1 teaspoon of chili flakes
• 1 thick slice of prosciutto (250g) cut into chunks (any deli will do this for you, just ask them to cut it off by hand. As prosciutto can be expensive you could substitute for a ham hock)
• 1 cup of white wine
• 1 cup of water.

My version of Chicken Canzanese

1. Put the chicken in a large mixing bowl and cover with water and one tablespoon of salt. Leave it for approx an hour. Then remove and pat dry with paper towels.
2. Lay the chicken out in a large fry pan and dump all the ingredients on top.
3. Cover and cook on medium for 35-40 minutes. Remove the lid ( I used foil) and cook for 5 minutes so sauce slightly reduces.
4. I served it in the pan with smashed potatoes (boiled with then added some crushed garlic and butter) and a simple salad of tomatoes, cucumber and Spanish onion.