Braised Chicken in a Wine and Tomato Sauce with Autumnal Herbs

Vanessa was feeling sick and miserable yesterday, so I decided to cook up some sure-fire, feel-better, cold-weather comfort food to try to help out.

The key to this whole thing is the wine. Don't buy cheap crap or the dish will taste of cheap crap. Cooking with wine is about cooking with wine that you would be drinking if you weren't cooking with it. Use the good stuff and your tummy and tongue will thank you. Besides, the recipe calls for using a half bottle. It would be wise to drink the rest of it along with the food.

We had some leftover chicken pieces from the other day and some leftover fresh sage from the night before. The rest was easy. These are the types of dishes I always seem to create in the autumn and winter time and I love it when they turn out. This was so hearty and autumn-y.

The chicken is now gone, but there are a few good-sized ladlefuls of wonderful sauce left behind. You KNOW that's going to get tossed with some pasta to make a super-quick and awesome lunch today. Anyways, here you go.... get on with it!

2 tablespoons olive oil, from the roasted peppers in the jar (see below)
chicken skins (from the legs and thighs below)
1 link spicy pork sausage, preferably spicy Italian-style
2 chicken legs, skinned
2 chicken thighs, skinned
1 ½ large onion, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
6-8 pieces roasted peppers, from a jar, or roast them yourself
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
¼ cup tomato paste
375 milliliters red wine, preferably something with a peppery or spicy note, such as Italian or Spanish reds, Australian Shiraz, etc.
2 cans chopped tomato
salt and black pepper
10 leaves sage, chopped

Heat the olive oil in a pot over medium-high heat. When hot, add the chicken skins and fry off until golden and they have rendered some of their fat to the pan. Remove and discard.

Add the chicken pieces and brown off on all sides, about 10-15 minutes total to get some good color on them. (Note: if you are doubling the recipe, you will probably need to do this in batches so as not to crowd the pan)

Add the sausage link (casing removed, but link still whole) and fry off until well colored on each side, about 4-5 minutes total. Remove and set aside.

Remove all but 2-3 tablespoons of fat in the pot (you may need to add some to achieve this amount). Reduce the heat to medium, add the onions, celery and garlic and sweat these vegetables off for 5-7 minutes, until the onions start to go translucent. Add the chopped peppers, red pepper flakes, oregano and rosemary and stir through to combine along with some salt and pepper.

Add the tomato paste and stir through to incorporate. Let this cook for a few minutes until the color of the paste goes a few shades darker and you can smell the sweetness of the paste coming through.

Turn the heat up all the way and add the wine. Scrape up any brown bits which have stuck to the bottom as the wine starts bubbling. Let the wine reduce by at least half, stirring occasionally. This will concentrate the wine flavor quite a bit.

Add the canned tomatoes and stir through to combine and and some more seasoning. Put the chicken pieces in the pot. Slice the sausage link into chunks and add them as well. When the liquid in the pot has come to a boil, reduce the heat down to low, partially cover and cook for 30-40 minutes, turning the chicken pieces over halfway through. Add the chopped fresh sage leaves when you have only 15 minutes to go.

Taste the sauce, adjust the seasoning as necessary and serve one thigh and one leg with some sauce.