A Fabulous Italian Eatery Shares a Secret Recipe: Chicken with Sausage, Cherry Peppers and Potatoes

My husband and I were recently visiting his sister and her husband in Greenwich, CT.  As we do on every visit, we dined at Polpo, a great Italian spot off the main drag.  I typically go with fish at Polpo but my brother-in-law, Jimmy, mentioned his favorite dish is the Pollo Campagnola.  Now, I’m not one to follow Jimmy’s lead when it comes to food. This is a guy whose idea of a great desert is two cherry popsicles and whose favorite all-time snack is greasy Grotto’s pizza from the Rehoboth Beach boardwalk.  But the fact of the matter is Jimmy knows his stuff when it comes to Polpo.  He’s a co-owner of the eatery and he dines there frequently. Plus, Jimmy is Italian, so although he doesn’t always eat good food, he knows it (I can hear him now, “Who’s up for a trip to Frosty Freeze?!!”).

Anyways, my sister-in-law and I both ordered the Pollo Campagnola and we were blown away by it.  The chicken was cooked to a crispy perfection and the sausage and cherry peppers were bursting with flavor. We passed on our compliments to the waiter and asked how to make it.  The lovely cook indulged us and below is the recipe straight out of Polpo's kitchen.

The toughest thing about it, quite frankly, is getting all the ingredients and having the right pan.  I drove to an Italian grocery store to get the sausages and the bottled hot cherry peppers. And I really didn’t have the right pan, so I used a Dutch oven (see blue pot on left below) and a small heavy circular steel pan.  The Dutch oven didn’t really work - the sides were too high.  The pan has to be low slung, like the smaller one (on the right in the photo below) I used.  Otherwise, the chicken and the sausage won’t get crispy – which is really the key to the dish. This recipe serves four or five people.

1 full chicken cut up (breasts cut up in 3 pieces)

An arm’s length of medium link Italian sausage – not hot

8-10 medium Yukon Gold potatoes

1 large or 2 medium onions

Jar of marinated Cherry Peppers in vinegar – (hot or mild)

Olive oil

Salt & Pepper

Cut up the chicken, the onion (cut in four or five sections and separate – you aren’t chopping here) and potatoes (halved or quartered depending on size – you want them to be just a bit over bite size).  Cut sausage in links and toss in. Toss in two whole cherry peppers per person. Drizzle with olive oil and salt and pepper. Marinate overnight.

Put oven on convection mode and turn on to 550.  The pan that they used at Polpo was a stainless steel pan with a handle that could be put in the oven. They cook single portions in it.  Of course you are doing multiple portions – so use what you have.  Try and make it as low on the sides as possible.  The Dutch oven did not work, as it did not get crispy.  The steel pan on the right worked much better – but I could only fit a single portion in it.  You just have to see what works here.

You only cook this 20 minutes – stirring it three times during the twenty minutes.  The oven is very hot so be careful not to burn yourself while stirring.  I think I singed a few arm hairs!

 

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