Chicken Coniglio Style (Mock Rabbit)

 In our household, my husband is fond of dark meat, I like white meat. Hence, I eat the chicken breast, he goes for the thighs and legs. In deference to his tastes, however, I picked up a package of chicken thighs. I don't mind the darker meat, when there is sufficient flavoring, and this recipe promises flavor!

My husband wrinkled his nose when he saw the jar of green olives. I knew what he was thinking...way too salty. Did you know, they sell low-sodium green olives? And that's what I bought. The recipe cautions to rinse the green olives and the raisins and the capers. Hmmm. Not seeing the need to rinse raisins, I just rinsed the olives and capers in a fine mesh sieve. I was concerned that these ingredients would still be too heavy on the salt, so I cut back on the amount in the recipe, maybe by a third roughly.

The recipe does not call for a deglaze after browning and setting aside the chicken. But I rummaged in the spice cupboard and found some red cooking wine to deglaze the pan before adding tomato sauce. This was my husband's idea, and being as how he is a fine cook, I took his advice!

The chicken and sauce have to simmer together for a while, with the delicious capers/olives/raisin mixture, and there is plenty of time to cook rice while that simmer is doing its thing. Last week I picked up arborio rice at the grocery, and decided it would hold up well in this meal. Sure enough, it was a delicious base.

I served this meal with a side of green beans, but I also might add mushrooms to the preparation of the chicken and sauce mixture, just because mushrooms make everything taste better, in my humble opinion! My husband was very complimentary about this meal, so I guess the olives behaved themselves (don't ya know, nobody wants a "salty" olive sassing the meal!).

I especially loved the story behind this recipe, as the recipe donor talks about watching her Nana Ferigno cook when she was a young child, and how she went on to inherit her Nana's handwritten recipes.