Pollo o coniglio alla cacciatora

Chicken or rabbit, hunters’ style

If I go to Bar Barberini at about four o’clock, there’s a good chance I will meet Donato, the affable cook and manager of Volpetti Più, the canteen-like tavola calda (café) where we have our lunch one day most weeks. Standing at Barberini’s sickle-shaped bar, with the clatter of cups and hiss of the espresso machine in the background, Donato has explained exuberantly how he makes lasagne, pasta e ceci, batter for fritti and—most important—his excellent chicken or rabbit alla cacciatora (hunters’ style).

Unlike other versions of this dish, which include tomatoes, onions, and red peppers, Donato’s is extremely simple and fragrant. Very good chicken or rabbit is browned and then simmered until tender with white wine and finely chopped rosemary, chile, and garlic, and the dish is finished with a tablespoon of vinegar and some black olives. Just the thought of preparing this dish makes me happy, not just because any dish that requires a glass of wine for the pan requires one for the cook, but because of the roaring scent of garlic and rosemary rising up from the cutting board, the golden crust on the meat, the whoosh the wine makes as it hits the hot pan, and the warm scent that fills the kitchen as the dish bubbles away. The vinegar may sound like an odd addition, but it works beautifully by sharpening the edges of the dish, making it bolder and more defined. It is, of course, optional, as are the olives.

It’s impossible to give precise timings, since so much depends on the meat. My butcher Roberta, who rather reassuringly makes her chicken and rabbit alla cacciatora in much the same way as Donato, notes that a cage-raised animal will cook in almost half the time of a free-range one. She also notes that while the meat is cooking you must make sure that both the pan and cook have enough wine, and scrape the meat juices every now and then from the bottom of the pan into the gravy, which should coat the pieces.

As for the wine, more often than not I use a white wine from the Marche region of Italy called Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi, which is dry and fragrant and works well, both in the dish and for drinking with it (if the cook hasn’t finished the entire bottle, that is). I generally serve it with a green vegetable, fine green beans being a favorite, or a green salad and some bread for mopping up juices.

serves 4

1 (3¼–4½-pound) chicken or rabbit

5 tablespoons olive oil

2 garlic cloves

1 chile pepper, or 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

a sprig of rosemary

1 cup white wine, plus extra if needed

salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

a handful of pitted black olives

Cut the chicken or rabbit into 12 pieces (I ask my butcher to do this). In a deep sauté pan or casserole dish with a lid that’s large enough to fit the meat in a snug single layer, warm the olive oil over medium heat. Add the meat pieces, skin-side down, and cook until the skin forms a golden crust, then turn them over and do the same on the other side. This will take about 20 minutes.

While the meat is browning, very finely chop the garlic, chile, and leaves from the rosemary sprig. Once the meat has browned, sprinkle in the chopped garlic, chile, and rosemary, pour over the white wine, season with salt and pepper, cover the pan, and turn the heat down to low. Cook the meat, turning from time to time, until the thighs feel very tender when prodded with a fork and the meat is surrounded by a thick gravy. This will take anywhere from 45 minutes to 1¼ hours, depending on the chicken (or rabbit). If the pan seems dry, add a little more wine. In the last minutes of cooking, add the vinegar and olives, stir, and divide among warmed dishes.

Abbacchio al forno con le patate

Roast lamb with potatoes

In my family we weren’t religious about traditional Sunday lunch in the way that many people were. We were just as likely to be eating tagine and couscous or a Greek spinach pie with whole eggs in it. However, when Granny Alice or Mum did cook a traditional roast, it was greeted with a hungry roar of approval. Everyone else’s favorite was roast beef and all the trimmings, but mine was a shoulder of English lamb with roast potatoes. Especially when it was cooked by Alice, my mum’s mum and my second namesake.

We English are mocked for our plate piling and sea of gravy, especially on Sundays. Granny Alice, however, was not a fan of such plate chaos. She served her lamb generously but simply: a few slices of meat with some crisp and golden potatoes beside it, a spoonful of the juices from the bottom of the pan over the top. Alice would have approved of lamb in Rome, because that’s precisely how it’s served, usually on Sundays and festive days here. The lamb is much younger, often a small abbacchio or suckling lamb. A slim leg with ribs and kidneys attached is perfumed with fresh rosemary and garlic, then cooked in a slow oven with pieces of potato anointed with strutto (lard) or olive oil until they are golden and crisp, and the meat is tender and falling off the bone.

serves 4

4½ pounds whole young leg of lamb

3 garlic cloves

several sprigs of fresh rosemary

a slice of lard or 4–6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

salt and freshly ground black pepper

2¼ pounds potatoes

In Rome, they slash the leg of lamb deeply, without cutting through it entirely, to create thick slices. If I have a larger leg, though, I simply make tiny slashes. Place the lamb in a roasting pan large enough to accommodate it with the potatoes. Slice the garlic and break the rosemary into small sprigs. Rub your hands with lard or olive oil, then massage the lamb generously, inserting the slivers of garlic and rosemary into the slashes as you go. By the time you’ve finished, the lamb should be glistening and scented with garlic and rosemary.

Smear a little lard or oil on the base of the roasting pan, then place the lamb skin-side down in the pan. Season with salt and pepper and leave to rest for 30 minutes or so. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Cut the potatoes into quarters, rub them with lard or olive oil (hands are best for this), then arrange them around the lamb. Season the potatoes with a little salt. Slide the lamb into the oven. Cook for about 1 hour, basting every so often and turning the leg twice, or until the meat is very tender when prodded with a fork. Very young lamb might need less time and older lamb may need more. Some people like to pour a glass of white wine over the lamb halfway through the cooking time, although in this case I don’t, as it tends to make the potatoes soggy. Leave the meat to rest, covered loosely with aluminum foil, for at least 10 minutes, then serve in thick slices with a potato or two and a spoonful of the sticky juices from the bottom of the pan.

The other butcher

The first time we drove across Rome to Bottega Liberati, it felt like a betrayal, a clandestine visit to another butcher. As comeuppance, we got lost twice near Caffarella Park, then caught up in a one-way system that took us back onto the congested Toscolana. Our car, a tin-can Fiat Panda, overheated, as did we. It’d better be worth it, we both scowled while Luca howled.

It was. The distinctive double-fronted shop on an ordinary street in south Rome is extraordinary, a beacon for butchery and good food. Father and son Emilio and Roberto Liberati know the origins of every single animal, all of which are organic, and they make butchery look like an art, which of course it is. Congestion and betrayal were quickly forgotten. We were here for porchetta.

Porchetta is a large, boneless pork roast typical of Lazio, most notably Ariccia in the province of Rome. The body of the pig is gutted, deboned, and arranged carefully, then seasoned generously with salt, garlic, black pepper, rosemary, and other herbs before being rolled into a log, usually about a yard long, tied, and roasted slowly. It is then served in thick slices, usually sandwiched between two pieces of chewy pane casareccio (home-style bread). Made well, porchetta is utterly delicious, the rolled meat swirled with thick swathes of fat, both of which are deeply seasoned, with dark gold skin crisp enough to cut your lip. It’s also ubiquitous: most towns and cities have a stall, usually a semipermanent truck with a hatch, awning, and possibly a cluster of plastic chairs at which to sit and eat your sandwich. Porchetta trucks are fixtures at every festival, fair or village sagra (local fête), parked in the middle of the benign pandemonium and providing an option for supper. Ubiquity means questionable quality, so you have to be picky about where you buy porchetta. We have several trusted stalls and shops, the best being Il Norcino Bernabei, a drive away in Marino, the home of Vincenzo’s oldest friend, Paola. We eat our porchetta panini with cold beer, then wander to see the Fontana dei Quattro Mori.

But back to Bottega Liberati and that first visit. Roberto had prepared the porchetta meat for us, a piece significantly larger than Luca, who was running around the shop. I was slightly overwhelmed by the size. Roberto, a butcher and a gentleman, noted this and offered to sell us only a section, but my inability to say, “Yes, actually it is three times bigger than I imagined,” means we were soon heaving a 29-pound porchetta into the trunk, which sagged like a crestfallen dog. Our job was to drive the porchetta across Rome and deliver it to Chris, a friend and chef who was going to season it, roll it, tie it, and cook it in a professional oven for a lunch two days later. The plan was that I would observe the process and then write about it for the book—a plan that fell at the first hurdle because I didn’t end up being able to watch the seasoning, rolling, and roasting. I did help eat the porchetta that Chris cooked masterfully, but I quietly shelved the recipe for the book.

A few months later, however, we returned to Liberati, getting caught in the one-way system again for posterity, to watch Roberto prepare a smaller 6½-pound piece of pork. He cut away the ribs from a piece of belly, pulled away certain sections of fat, and trimmed the piece of skin that he would roll back over the pork. He then put a small piece of fillet in the center and seasoned the pork generously with salt, chopped garlic, rosemary, chile, black pepper, and a dusting of fennel pollen, rolled it up, and tied it with string at ¾-inch intervals.

This time I roasted it in my tin-can oven at 325°F for 4½ hours, which meant sliding it into the oven while I ate breakfast. By eleven o’clock, two neighbors were peering through the (open) front door to ask if they were invited. By twelve o’clock we had possibly one of the best roasts I’ve ever cooked: a burnished roll that sat resting until we ate it cut into big, shaggy slices, the meat in shades of pink and brown swirled with soft, seasoned fat. The next day, the porchetta was every bit as good cold, the meat firmer and the fat in opaque swathes, stuffed into sandwiches with lettuce and mustard.

The next day I told Mauro, my usual Testaccio butcher, somewhat sheepishly about my visits to another butcher for porchetta. The admission was met with both disapproval and approval. “Come era?” (“How was it?”) he asked. “Veramente buono” (“Really good”), I told him. “Allora, va bene” (“Well then, that’s OK”), he replied before thwacking a lamb chop, and that was that.