05/15 - Fortune Friday!

I did say vodka sauce. I'm making some upstate New York classic chicken riggies tomorrow.

 

It chicken over Rigatoni in a light vodka sauce or a pink sauce. Usually made with hot cherry peppers although you can do sweet if you're a wimp, roasted red pepper and mushrooms however I leave out the fungus when I do it. Oh and shallots. Looove me some shallots.

You can pretty much only find it as named in Syracuse/Utica/Rome NY and surrounding areas.

 

My Riggie recipe: I typed this up for me brother in law who can't cook period. So....may you get some use from it

You will need:

• 1 box rigatoni pasta
  
• 2-3 chicken breasts (depending on size of breast) cut in to roughly 1 inch or smaller cubes
  
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
  
• 2 tablespoons butter
  
• 2 cloves garlic
  
• 2-3 shallots (depending on size) (diced)
  
• ¾ cup – 1 cup vodka
  
• 1 can (14oz) tomato puree
  
• 1 cup heavy cream
  
• Hot Cherry Peppers (Jarred is preferred to fresh, in oil preferred to vinegar, but either works. Note they also sell jarred sweet cherry peppers too. Make sure they’re the hot variety)
  
• 1 jar (6-8 oz) roasted red sweet peppers (typically located in the same area that the cherry peppers are, near the jarred jalapenos and olives and such).
  
• Basil (either dried or actual leaves)
  
• Oregano is nice too, but optional.
  
• Ground pepper
  
• Italian seasoning

Instructions

1. Add some olive oil to a skillet that’s big enough to hold the chicken cubes and heat on medium heat.
   
2. Once the butter melts, throw in your chicken breast cubes, shake in some of the Italian seasoning to coat the chicken. Cook this until the chicken is just cooked. Stir occasionaly so chicken doesn’t get burned on one side and adjust heat if it’s getting too brown. While that’s going on proceed to step 3
   
3. Start making the sauce/pasta. Start a bunch of water boiling and when it reaches a boil cook the rigatoni as per the directions on the box. Continue to step 4 while this is happening to start working on the sauce.
   
4. Get yourself a 12 inch skillet and put in 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 2 tablespoons butter. Heat over medium heat until the butter melts. (Note, this skillet must be large enough to hold the chicken and all the sauce, it should be fairly large)
   
5. Dice up the shallots and the garlic nice and small and once the butter has melted in the pan throw them in there. Cook them until the shallots get slightly transparent and squishy, probably around 2-3 minutes.
   
6. Pour in the Vodka (careful if it’s a gas stove…highly flammable). Let the vodka boil off for 3-4 minutes. Stir around occasionally.
   
7. Pepper time. I like adding 3-4 cherry peppers. I generally cut off the top of the pepper where the stem is and pull out all the seeds and discard them. Then cut the pepper up into 1/8ths and throw it into the vodka/shallot mixture. Vary the number of peppers based on how hot you want it…be careful though, they pack a punch.
   
8. For the sweet peppers, drain the oil from the jar and pull them out. Slice them into long, narrow strips. You’re trying to get narrow strips of pepper (sorta like French fry sized). I typically don’t use the entire jar of pepper, you can use your judgement based on how much sweet peppers to add.
   
9. Add in the can of tomato puree and stir up the mixture. Reduce heat to low for the sauce skillet. The sauce should turn an orange-y pink color once it’s mixed entirely.
   
10. Add in the cup of heavy cream and let the mixture simmer for 5-10 minutes, stirring regularly. Around this point your chicken should be pretty much done, so you can just dump it into the sauce pan to simmer with the rest of it.
    
11. At this point it gets less scientific. I usually add in a decent helping of pepper and either dried basil leaf flakes or a couple of diced up actual basil leaves. Some oregano is good too. Add your spices, stir it all up and taste frequently and adjust accordingly.
    
12. Simmer the sauce until the pasta is finished boiling, then put the pasta in a bowl and pour the sauce over it.
    
13. Mix and enjoy. Goes really well with some crusty bread to dip in the leftover riggie sauce.

Modifications

Some people like to put mushrooms in their riggies. I don’t like mushrooms at all, so I leave them out of mine.