Italian Hunter Style Chicken with Tomato, Rosemary and Olives | Pollo alla Cacciatora
Updated: Oct 24
Pollo alla cacciatora is the most cooked braise in Italy and the most misunderstood outside it. It is not a tomato stew with chicken dropped into it. It is bone in poultry browned hard in a wide pan, white wine to lift what the browning left behind, just enough tomato to carry the flavour, a branch of rosemary and a handful of olives added at the right moment. One pan, and nothing quick about it.
This is the version built on tomato, rosemary and olives, the one most families in central and southern Italy make. The olive is not decoration: it brings salt and a controlled bitterness the tomato cannot supply, and it decides whether the sauce tastes flat or tastes like cacciatora. The rosemary works from the other direction, giving the resin and pine note that makes the plate smell of the Mediterranean rather than of a tin of tomatoes.
What follows is the method with the timings and the internal temperatures that matter. Brown properly, reduce the wine properly, keep the tomato quantity honest, and do not let the olives boil for an hour. Serve with bread or soft polenta, because the sauce is half the reason the dish exists.
Yield: 4 servings. Prep: 25 minutes. Cook: 55 minutes. Rest: 10 minutes. Total: about 1 hour 30 minutes. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: secondo. Region: central Italy, with Ligurian and Lazio variants.
The Story
Alla cacciatora means in the manner of the hunter, and the name is literal. The dish began as the way a household cooked what came back from a day in the hills: hare, wild rabbit, pheasant, wood pigeon, sometimes an old bird that had stopped laying. None of that meat is tender or mild, so it was cut into pieces, browned in oil, wetted with wine and whatever preserved acidity the pantry held, and left to soften over a low fire with a branch of something aromatic cut on the way home. The chicken version arrived much later, when farmed poultry became the cheapest meat in Italy.
The olives came from the store cupboard, which is why they differ from one province to the next. In Liguria the cacciatora is made with taggiasche, the small brown olives of the Ponente coast, sweet and low in salt and almost buttery. In Lazio the olives are those of Gaeta, larger, purple, sharper and much saltier, holding their shape and pushing the sauce towards a firmer savoury edge. Both are correct. A black olive from a can is not.
Rosemary is the aroma of this cooking. It grows wild along the whole peninsula, it stands up to a long braise, and it is resinous enough to answer the sweetness of cooked tomato, which is why Italian cooks use it with poultry, rabbit and pork and almost never with fish. Between the olive, the rosemary and the wine, cacciatora is a portrait of the Italian one pan supper: cheap meat, a long fire, nothing wasted, and enough sauce to justify a second piece of bread.
Ingredients
For the chicken
Whole chicken, cut into 8 bone in pieces, 3 1/2 lb (1.6 kg)
Fine sea salt, 2 tsp (12 g)
Freshly ground black pepper, 1/2 tsp (1 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 3 tbsp (45 ml)
For the base
Yellow onion, finely diced, 1 medium, 5 oz (150 g)
Celery stalk, finely diced, 1, 2 oz (60 g)
Garlic cloves, lightly crushed, 3
Dry white wine, 1 cup (240 ml)
For the sauce
Whole peeled plum tomatoes, crushed by hand, or passata, 2 cups (480 g)
Chicken stock, hot, 1 cup (240 ml)
Rosemary, whole sprigs, 2, about 5 in (13 cm) each
Bay leaf, 1
Crushed red pepper flakes, 1/4 tsp (0.5 g), optional
For finishing
Taggiasca or Gaeta olives, 3/4 cup (120 g), pitted or left whole
Flat leaf parsley, chopped, 2 tbsp (6 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 1 tbsp (15 ml)
Crusty bread or soft polenta, to serve
Preparation
Cut and dry the chicken
Joint the bird into eight bone in pieces: two drumsticks, two thighs, two wings and each breast halved across the bone. Cutting through the bone rather than boning out matters, because the marrow and connective tissue give the sauce its body. Dry every piece thoroughly with paper towels and season with the salt and pepper on all sides. Damp skin steams instead of browning.
Brown the chicken skin side down
Heat the olive oil in a wide heavy pan or shallow braiser over medium high heat until it shimmers. Lay the pieces in skin side down, without crowding, and leave them alone for 7 to 9 minutes. Do not move them and do not lift them to check. Turn once and give the second side 3 to 4 minutes. The skin should be dark gold, not pale tan. Work in two batches if the pan is not wide enough, and move the browned pieces to a tray.
Build the fondo bruno
Pour off all but about 2 tablespoons of the fat. What is stuck to the base of the pan is the fondo, the browned residue carrying most of the roasted flavour, and it must go into the sauce rather than the sink. Lower the heat to medium, add the onion, celery and garlic and cook 6 to 8 minutes, stirring and scraping, until the vegetables are soft and the fondo has loosened into them.
Deglaze with the white wine
Raise the heat, pour in the wine and scrape the base of the pan clean with a wooden spoon while it bubbles hard. Let it reduce by two thirds, 4 to 5 minutes, until the smell of alcohol is gone and what is left is syrupy. White wine, not red, is the traditional choice: it keeps the sauce bright and lets the tomato and the olive stay legible. Unreduced wine leaves a raw acidity that later simmering never removes.
Add the tomato and judge the liquid
Add the crushed tomatoes, the hot stock, the bay leaf and the chilli flakes if using. The quantity is deliberate: 2 cups of tomato and 1 cup of stock comes roughly halfway up the chicken and no more. Cacciatora is a braise, not a soup. Simmer 8 to 10 minutes until the raw tinned smell has cooked off and the colour has darkened towards brick.
Return the chicken and add the rosemary
Nestle the pieces back in skin side up, so the tops stay above the liquid, and pour in any juices from the tray. Tuck the two whole rosemary sprigs among them. Bring to a bare simmer, cover, and cook over low heat for 30 minutes with the surface barely moving. A hard boil toughens the breast and clouds the sauce, while a real simmer gives the collagen in the thighs and wings time to turn to gelatin.
Add the olives late and pull the breast
At the 30 minute mark, add the olives and continue uncovered for 12 to 15 minutes more. Around the same time check the breast pieces: they reach 165°F (74°C) well before the dark meat and should come out to a warm plate as soon as they do. Leave the thighs and drumsticks until they read 175°F (79°C) or higher. Fish out the rosemary and the bay leaf and discard them.
Reduce the sauce and rest
With the meat out of the pan, raise the heat and reduce the sauce for 3 to 5 minutes until it is glossy and coats the back of a spoon. Taste only now, because the olives have been adding salt and the reduction concentrates it further. Return all the chicken, spoon the sauce over it, cover and rest off the heat for 10 minutes.
Plating
Serve in warmed wide shallow bowls or deep plates, never on a flat dinner plate: there is a lot of sauce and it needs somewhere to sit. Give each person one piece of white meat and one of dark, as it is portioned at an Italian table. Spoon the sauce around and partly over the chicken, leaving the skin exposed so it keeps what crispness it has left.
Scatter the parsley over at the last second and add a thin thread of raw olive oil. Do not add fresh rosemary at the end: cooked and raw rosemary taste nothing alike, and raw needles are aggressive and slightly medicinal. Bread goes on the table, torn not sliced, or soft polenta beside the chicken rather than under it.
Professional Technique
The technical heart of this version is the relationship between the tomato and the olive, and it is a question of timing rather than quantity. An olive in brine carries two things the sauce needs, salt and a mild bitterness from the phenolic compounds in its skin and flesh, and both migrate into the cooking liquid. Given 15 minutes the olives release enough of each to give the tomato a savoury backbone and stop it tasting sweet. Given an hour they release far too much, the bitterness becomes dominant, and the olives go grey, soft and hollow. That is why they enter at 30 minutes.
Because the olives are doing the seasoning, the salt has to be held back. Season the chicken before browning and add nothing more until the olives have been in the pan and the sauce has reduced. Salt the sauce on instinct and it tastes right before the olives and heavily oversalted twenty minutes later. Taggiasche usually need a small correction at the end; Gaeta olives usually do not. Pitted olives give up salt faster, so stay nearer 12 minutes.
The rosemary needs the same discipline. It goes in as two whole sprigs, never chopped and never stripped, because the woody stem releases its oils slowly and evenly while loose needles dump everything at once and disintegrate into the sauce. Whole sprigs are also removable, which is the point: after about 45 minutes the rosemary has given all the resinous pine character it usefully can, and if it stays it turns the dish camphorous and faintly bitter in a way that fights the olive.
Texture and Moisture Control
Chicken on the bone is two meats with two endpoints. Breast is lean and its fibres contract and squeeze out moisture above about 165°F (74°C), so at that point it is done and should leave the pan. Thigh, drumstick and wing are full of connective tissue, and that collagen only converts to gelatin above roughly 160°F (71°C) and needs time as well as heat, which is why they are better at 175°F (79°C). A single temperature for everything means either dry breast or stringy thigh.
The skin is a compromise. Browned hard and then kept above the liquid line, it stays chewy and gold at the edges, which is all a braise can deliver, and that is why the pieces go back skin side up. The gelatin from the bones and cartilage gives the sauce its slight stickiness on the lips, and that is why the final reduction happens with the meat out of the pan: you are evaporating water, not overcooking poultry.
Professional Mise en Place
Two moments cannot wait: the browning, and the point where the olives go in and the breast comes out. Everything else is ready in advance.
Equipment and tools
Wide heavy pan or shallow braiser, 12 in (30 cm), with a lid
Heavy chef knife or poultry shears for jointing the bird
Instant read thermometer, tongs, wooden spoon
Tray or warm plate for the pieces resting out of the pan
Prepared ahead
Chicken jointed, dried and seasoned, up to 8 hours ahead, uncovered on a rack in the refrigerator
Onion, celery and garlic cut and held in a covered bowl
Tomatoes crushed by hand, stock measured and kept hot
Olives drained, parsley chopped, rosemary sprigs left whole
Service setup
Bowls warming, bread torn or polenta held soft over low heat
Thermometer within reach from the 30 minute mark onwards
Tongs ready to remove the rosemary and the bay leaf before reducing
Finishing oil and parsley held back until the plates are in front of you
Chef Tips
Buy a whole bird and joint it yourself rather than a tray of thighs. You get the wings and the back, both rich in cartilage, and the sauce is better for it. Add the backbone during the braise and remove it at the end.
Taste one olive before it goes near the pan. Brine strength varies enormously between producers, and a very salty batch means using slightly fewer and adding them a little later, or rinsing them briefly and patting them dry.
If the sauce tastes thin, do not reach for the salt. Reduce it two more minutes or stir in a teaspoon of tomato paste and cook it for one. Salt is the one correction you cannot undo.
If you are cooking ahead, stop after the 30 minute covered braise and add the olives during the reheat instead. The sauce deepens overnight and the olives stay fresh.
Common Mistakes
Adding the olives at the beginning. An hour in the pan strips their texture and pushes far too much salt and bitterness into the sauce. They enter at 30 minutes and cook 12 to 15, no more.
Leaving the rosemary in to the end. Past about 45 minutes it turns the sauce camphorous and medicinal. Two whole sprigs, pulled when the meat comes out, never chopped needles.
Too much liquid. Tomato and stock should reach halfway up the chicken, not cover it. Drowned cacciatora poaches instead of braising and never concentrates enough to cling.
Not reducing the wine. Tipping tomato onto raw wine locks a thin harsh acidity into the dish for good. Reduce by two thirds until it is syrupy and the alcohol smell has gone.
Cooking breast and thigh to the same point. Breast is finished at 165°F (74°C) and dark meat wants 175°F (79°C) or more. Take the breast out when ready and return it at the end.
Salting the sauce early. The olives season it for you. Salt the chicken before browning and correct nothing until after the olives and the reduction.
Crowding the pan. Packed pieces release steam and go grey instead of gold, and with no fondo on the base the sauce has no depth. Brown in two batches.
Wine Pairing
Chianti Classico DOCG: The standard answer and the right one. Sangiovese has naturally high acidity, exactly what a tomato based sauce needs alongside it, so the two meet on level terms instead of the wine tasting flat. Its fine grained tannin cuts the rendered skin fat, and the sour cherry and dried herb notes sit beside the rosemary.
Rosso di Montalcino DOC: Sangiovese again but younger and softer, which suits braised poultry better than a heavyweight red. The same acid spine handles the tomato while the lighter tannin keeps it from overwhelming chicken, and there is still enough weight to sit under a reduced sauce.
Montepulciano d'Abruzzo DOC: Rounder and darker in fruit, with lower acidity and a soft supple tannin. This is the choice when the sauce has reduced hard and tastes concentrated and faintly sweet, because the wine answers that with body rather than sharpness. Serve at 61°F (16°C).
Cesanese del Piglio DOCG: The Lazio red, and the natural partner to olives from Gaeta. It carries a savoury, faintly bitter edge alongside its red fruit that meets the salt and the olive head on instead of being flattened, and its black pepper and dried herb notes track the rosemary.
Rossese di Dolceacqua DOC: The Ligurian answer, for the taggiasca version. Light in colour and tannin but genuinely aromatic, with wild herb and rose notes and a saline finish from vineyards close to the sea. That salinity echoes the olive rather than competing with it.
Storage & Reheating
Cacciatora keeps extremely well and improves overnight, as the sauce loses a little more water and the olive, rosemary and tomato settle into each other. Cool it within two hours, transfer chicken and sauce together into a shallow airtight container, and refrigerate up to 3 days. Keep the pieces submerged, because chicken above the liquid line dries out in the cold.
Reheat gently in a covered pan over low heat for 12 to 15 minutes, adding 2 or 3 tablespoons of stock or water to loosen the sauce. Keep the liquid below a simmer and turn the pieces once: you are bringing the meat back to temperature, not cooking it again. Never use full power in a microwave on bone in chicken, because the wings overcook long before the thigh is warm.
It freezes well up to 3 months in its sauce, thawed overnight in the refrigerator. Olives soften noticeably in the freezer, so if you are cooking to freeze, leave them out and add them fresh during the reheat.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 4 servings of two pieces each with sauce, excluding bread or polenta:
Calories: 610 kcal
Total Fat: 38 g
Saturated Fat: 9 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Unsaturated Fat: 27 g
Cholesterol: 195 mg
Sodium: 980 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 14 g
Fiber: 3 g
Total Sugars: 7 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 51 g
Lactose: 0 g
Principal micronutrients: niacin, vitamin B6, selenium, phosphorus, potassium, iron, lycopene from the tomato
These figures are estimates. Sodium is the least predictable line and depends on the brine strength of the olives and on how much fat is poured off after browning.
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