Seasonal Ontario Food

Otherwise known as Chicken, Hunter Style. What those hunters were doing hunting chickens, I don't know. Maybe they were Elmer Fudd chasing after Bugs Bunny, and had to settle for something a little more bird-brained. (Although if you do better at getting hold of a rabbit, there is no reason not to make Coniglio alla Cacciatora with it.)

This is the kind of thing I love. Simple food, cooked pretty simply, but damn, it's good.

You could get all refined and purée the vegetables (or at least everything but the peppers) but that doesn't seem very hunter-like. I used Jimmy Nardellos for the peppers, by the way - a classic Italian frying pepper - but any thin-walled frying pepper will do. Cubanelles would have been my next choice, especially if they were ripe enough to be blushed with colour.

If you don't want polenta, serve it with rice or tagliatelle.

4 to 6 servings
1 hour prep time


1 1.5 kilo (3 pound) chicken or equivalent in chicken pieces
500 grams (1 pound, 4 to 6 medium) frying peppers
1 stalk celery
1 medium onion
1 medium carrot
4 to 6 cloves of garlic
500 grams (1 pound, 2 or 3 large) fresh tomatoes
1/4 cup good olive oil

3 2" sprigs of fresh rosemary
6 to 8 large fresh sage leaves

1 cup white or red wine
salt & pepper to taste

Cut the chicken into joints, removing the breasts from the carcass and cutting each side piece into about 3 even pieces. Use the carcass and any excess skin to make chicken stock - which will be used in some other recipe, not this one. Put a pot of water on to boil as well, for the tomatoes.

Set the chicken pieces aside, and chop the peppers, discarding stems and seeds, into large bite-sized pieces. Chop the celery finely, and peel and chop the onion and carrot finely as well. Peel the garlic and press the pieces until smashed but still whole.

When the water is boiling, blanch the tomatoes for 1 minute, then transfer them to the sink, where run cold water over them  until they are cool enough to handle. Slip off the skins, and cut the tomatoes into large dice or small chunks. 

Heat the oil in a large skillet. Add the rosemary and sage leaves, and cook gently until stiff and slightly coloured. Add the garlic when they are about half done. Remove them all, draining them well to keep as much oil as possible in the pan. Set them aside.

Add the peppers, and cook them for 5 to 10 minutes over medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until they are soft and browned in spots. Lift them out of the pan and set them aside. Repeat with the celery, onion and carrot (as one batch). When they too are softened and slightly browned, add them to the peppers.

Next brown the chicken pieces - they should be quite dry as they are put into the pan, and go in in a single layer. Cook them for about 15 minutes, turning and moving them as necessary, until they are well browned on both sides. Hopefully you have kept most of the oil in the pan by careful removal of the vegetables, and don't need to add any more - but if you do need to add more, then you will need to add more. The chicken should be in no danger whatever of sticking.

Add the sautéed vegetables back into the pan, along with the tomatoes and wine. Add the garlic, and the herbs back as well, although I think it is best if you can put the sage and rosemary into a spice ball to keep them from disintegrating into the dish. Otherwise you will need to fish them out as best you can just before serving. Let the chicken simmer for another 15 minutes or so, turning the pieces regularly to be sure they cook through. The sauce should cook down, but still be moist and a little juicy/chunky rather than thick. You can add a spoonful of water or two if necessary, but better to keep the temperature well regulated. Season with salt and pepper to taste. We served ours over oven baked polenta without any cheese and swooned.




Last year at this time I made Miso Broiled Vegetables. If I had had a puffball this week, I would likely have used it in place of the peppers. Or in addition, maybe.

I've had rabbit in restaurants, and always enjoyed it, but this was my first ever attempt at cooking it. I used the recipe for Rabbit Ragu from Epicurious, and followed it pretty exactly. I used more carrot than called for, omitted the butter and reduced the amount of oil, used dried herbs including a bay leaf, replaced the onion with shallots, added more tomato, and puréed about half of the sauce. Also I just used a good-quality but regular bacon, not pancetta. And I doubled the recipe, as there were 8 of us. Well, for me that's about as pretty exactly as it gets.

Also, one can only snicker at their injunction to use "1 (3-lb) rabbit, boned by butcher and meat cut into 1-inch pieces (1 1/2 lb boned)". Good luck with that. Hereabouts, you will take your rabbit whole or not at all. It is not the easiest thing to find, although I know you can get it fresh at the Kitchener Farmers Market. Frequently, it will be frozen, but they are small enough they should thaw out in 24 hours in the fridge. I jointed mine, sautéd the pieces a fair bit longer than called for, then stewed them with the bones in. I made the ragu a day ahead, and the next morning I boned the rabbit pieces and returned the meat to the ragu. This was surprisingly quick; I did two rabbits, and the whole process took about 20 minutes.

There was a reasonable amount left over, which I added to some of my canned tomato sauce from the summer; an excellent combination.

4 servings
2 hours - 1 hour prep time



1 rabbit, 1.5 kilograms (3 to 3 1/2 pounds)
125 grams lean bacon
4 medium shallots
2 medium carrots
1 stalk of celery
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon rubbed sage
1 teaspoon whole rosemary
1 bay leaf
1 1/4 teaspoons coarse gray sea salt
1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
1 cup dry red wine
3 to 4 cups crushed tomatoes


Thaw the rabbit overnight, if frozen. Remove the liver and kidneys (if included) and use 'em for something else; I have no suggestions, sorry. Cut the rabbit into sections - I cut off all the legs, and then cut the torso in half. Rabbits are small boned, and it was easy to do this. I also cut open the rib-cage, but I'm not sure that was particularly helpful.

Chop the bacon finely.

Peel the shallots and carrot. Dice the carrot, shallots and celery.

Sauté the bacon in a large skillet until the pan is nicely oil and the bacon lightly crisped. Add the rabbit pieces and sauté until lightly browned on each side. When you turn them, add the prepared vegetables and the seasonings, and sauté them as well. Add the olive oil as needed - there should be enough to keep things generously lubricated but not swimming.

If your skillet is big enough, I suppose you can just keep going in it. I found it easier to remove everything to a large stew pot at this point. Add the wine and the tomatoes. Simmer the stew gently for about 45 minutes to an hour.

Let the stew cool enough to refrigerate, and refrigerate overnight (or for several hours at least.)

Pick out the rabbit pieces, and remove the meat from the bones. Nothing like fingers for this. While the meat was out of the sauce, I also puréed about half of it, which I think was a good idea. It made the carrots less prominent and the sauce saucier. Once that's done, add the now boneless meat shreds back into the sauce.

Whenever you are ready to eat, the ragu has only to be reheated. It's traditionally served with pappardelle, or polenta, but I served good old mashed potatoes. I bet it would be great with Clapshot.