Chicken with Cooked Wine

This also came out of Molto Italiano.  I followed the recipe but it wasn’t that clear about a few things so I will write what I did in my blog.  This was a huge hit.  Will make again.

4 1/2 cups red wine (don’t use anything fancy here just a cheap Italian wine)
1/2 cup honey
2 cinnamon sticks
3 cloves

Take all the ingredients above into a heavy bottom sauce pan, bring to a boil and then take that down to medium.  Let this reduce. It takes some time but eventually you want to have one cup left.  Set that aside to cool.

One 3 lb. chicken cut into 8 serving pieces ( I tossed the wings and added another boned breast cut in half)
Kosher Salt
1 large Spanish onion diced
2 carrots diced
1/2 cup green olives, pitted and chopped
3 T. raisins ( I used currants)
1 T capers ( I was out so that was omitted)
1 T. pine nuts (you were supposed to toast them first but I didn’t)
3 T. blanched almonds toasted ( I had sliced almonds on hand and used that instead)
1 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
1T. hot red pepper flakes

In a large (12 inch preferably and non-stick) saute pan, cover the bottom with olive oil.  Season the chicken with salt and add to the heated pan skin side down for about four minutes, then turn.  The skin should be browned.  Do this at a high heat.  Take out the chicken and set aside.  Lower the heat to medium and add the onions and carrots and cook them until deep brown.  Once I put the onions and carrots in, I added the chicken back in on top of the carrots and onions.  I continued to move the carrots and onions around but shaking the pan.  Once they were golden, I took the chicken out again.  Now I added in the olives, raisins, capers, pine nuts and almonds and stirred well.  Once it was all mixed up, I put the chicken back in.  It was hard to mix the concoction with the large pieces of chicken but the chicken had to be cooked much more than 8 minutes.  So again I shook the pan to get the mixture to cook. Now I added in 1/2 cup of the wine that has been cooled into the mix.  Turning the heat up until the wine begins to boil and reduces by about a half.  Once that has happened, add in the other 1/2 cup of wine and bring to a boil again.  It is hard to deglaze that pan with the chicken on top but I managed to move my wooden spoon around sometimes lifting up pieces of chicken to get underneath.

In the meantime, take the vinegar and sugar and mix them together in a small bowl.  Add that to the pan and continue to reduce the liquid until it is almost a glaze. 

Take out the pieces of chicken, serve on a warm platter and pour the mixture over the top.  Take the red pepper flakes and sprinkle on top (I didn’t do that but I guess I could have). 

Done!  It only takes about 45 minutes to make and it is quite good.