Chicken with olives
Pollo con le olive
In Tuscany the Beautiful Cookbook Lorenza di Medici advocates for the use of olives from Grosseto with chicken. These olives are preserved with orange zest and fennel seeds, and the same ingredients can be used with a pot roasted chicken. I have taken it one step further and turned it into an easy chicken stew that’s really nice when you are late home from work and have a hungry family to feed.
The interesting thing about this recipe is the taste of fennel seeds. Fennel grows wild all over Italy and as soon as they have flowered, people are eager to collect the seeds, which have a complex liquorice flavour and are widely used in everyday cooking.
Ingredients
2 chicken breasts
1 tbsp fennel seeds
1 clove garlic
Olive oil
1 tbsp flour
200 ml white wine
1 orange (zest and juice)
20 black olives
Preparation
Cut the chicken breast into big cubes
Fry them in olive oil with one peeled clove of garlic and the fennel seeds.
Add flour when the chicken is light brown.
Let it fry for a few minutes before stirring in wine and water to make a nice sauce.
Let the dish simmer for 20 minutes and then add orange juice, orange zest and olives.
Leave the pot on the stove for another 10 minutes.
Serve chicken with olives with bread, roasted potatoes or patatine chips (French fries).
If you can’t get hold of olives from Grosseto for your chicken, you can achieve the same taste by adding fennel seeds and orange zest to your chicken with olives stew.
I love recipes with fennel or fennel seed, and can’t wait to try this one. But I’m not sure of the measurement for the wine…what is 2 dl of wine?
grazie!
Sorry about that – I keep forgetting that these measures are a local continental European invention. 1 dl = 100 ml = 0.35 British cup (10 Brit. fl.oz.) = 0.42 American cup (8 US fl.oz). I’ll change the recipe to ml.
That does sound very tasty and quick and easy to make!
What a simple, yet delicious sounding recipe! I love olives, but have never tried them in a stew, sounds great!
Grazie mille for the conversion on the wine measurement! I tried the recipe this week and we really enjoyed it…it goes well with steamed broccoli and risotto.
I love cooking with fennel…and olives! What a delicious simple way to prepare chicken!
Good looking recipe, but please note 2 ml white wine is for sure not correct. 2 dl = 200 ml = 0,2 l
Thanks for noticing – And letting me know. You are absolutely right that is a typo, and I’ve corrected it immediately:)