Chicken Canzanese

This was Chicken Canzanese, a braised chicken dish from Abruzzo, a region on the east coast of central Italy. And braised Brussels sprouts.

I adapted a recipe from Cook's Illustrated May&June 2010 - cook prosciutto and garlic, brown chicken, Simmer chicken, prosciutto, garlic, whole cloves, rosemary, sage, red pepper flakes in white wine and chicken broth slowly in the oven about one and half a hour, transfer chicken to a plate, cook sauce with lemon juice and butter, pour sauce around chicken. It was not so complicated but took some time.

With some techniques from the recipe, my chicken skin was very crispy and the meat was juicy tender. Using whole cloves along with rosemary and sage surprised me. It was new for me to taste chicken flavored with cloves, which was fine, just different. For prosciutto, we bought 24 months aged Prosciutto di Palma. We tasted a small piece of the Italian air-cured ham at the store, it was so good! Maybe too good to cook and simmer with chicken. We served the chicken on couscous that nicely absorbed sauce.

I cooked braised Brussels sprouts, adapting a recipe from my favorite food blog, Smitten Kitchen. This is my standard way to cook Brussels sprouts so far. The creamy and Dijon-mustardy finish is always a winner.