Yay for easy recipes that sound all fancy and crazy! This was dinner last night, and will be lunch tomorrow, and it is oh-so-delicious and I love it. It’s from Lydie Marshall’s Slow-Cooked Comfort, and is one of the recipes from the book that I make fairly frequently. It’s basically chicken in a thick tomato sauce – it calls for legs and thighs, but works well with chicken breasts as well.

Ingredients
2 chicken legs and thighs
2 Tbsp olive oil
salt
pepper
half of one 28-ounce can peeled Italian plum tomatoes, chopped
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 cup heavy cream

Directions
Separate the chicken legs from thighs and chop off the ends of the legs (freeze these for a stock). Trim and discard the fat around the chicken pieces. Heat the oil in a 4 quart Dutch oven over medium heat. Brown the chicken pieces on all sides, starting skin side down; transfer to a plate. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

Discard most of the fat in this pot, raise the heat, and add tomatoes with their juices; stir in sugar, salt, red pepper flakes and oregano and bring to a high simmer. Cover partially and cook over medium heat for 15-20 minutes; now and then, mash the tomatoes into the cooking juices.

Add cream and bring to a light boil while stirring. Add the chicken pieces skin side up.

Cover tightly and simmer over low to medium heat for 40 minutes or until tender. Now and then, uncover the pot and let the water condensation under the lid fall back into the pot.

Transfer the chicken to a heated platter. Skim off the fat on top of the sauce and ladle the sauce over the chicken.

Notes from Courtney
The past few times that I made this, I found that the tomato sauce was a little bit bland, so this time around I added onions and garlic to it – much tastier.

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