Chicken & Peppers ... from today throughout the summer
The undisputed protagonist of the Roman tables in Ferragosto is the chicken with peppers.
Thighs, overcoats, fins and chicken breasts, with skin again, are cooked in a pan at low temperature together with yellow and red peppers and some aromatic herbs, rosemary, marjoram or Roman mint.
To eat exclusively with your fingers, this dish is good cold, on the beach, before a swim with friends or a walk along the promenade.
Because of its sweet and sour taste due to the presence of peppers and white wine it can be compared to oriental meat rich in sweet and acidic condiments based on sugar, mirin, soy and sake.
On the other hand, due to its slow cooking in the pan, it is intrinsically linked to French and British culture, famous for their braised and roasts, such as bourguignonne and roastbeef.
Today, the chicken with peppers has become an emblem of Roman summer so much so that it is translated into many dishes: dry pasta, stuffed pasta, risotto, supplì and arancini, cold and velvety salads.
We, we can not exempt ourselves from not creating a lasagna with these two products. And precisely because of this, we have added the Pollo & Peperoni lasagna to the menu for the next four months.
Colored for the use of two varieties of peppers, both yellow and red, perfumed by the presence of fresh thyme and rosemary, and delicious for the game of consistencies that it offers, is the queen of our new lasagne.
I was talking about a game of textures because inside those four layers of pasta there are both peppers in cream and in fillets and frayed chicken.
On the chicken it is necessary to take a moment.
First of all, you must necessarily buy organic chickens raised on the ground. They are immediately recognized by the color of the flesh, not pale pink, but almost orange. Moreover, as with all meats, the tastiest parts are those that work the most. The true beef lovers will never eat a fillet but a cheek, a nut or a priest's hat: second or third choice cuts that guarantee a more tasty result. The same applies to the chicken: the chest is thin, not very tasty and totally devoid of fat to the point of drying easily. Whatever the preparation with which you want to make the chicken protagonist, I suggest you choose the thighs and the overcoats that, having worked more, have acquired more moods and have developed a wider aromatic range. And again,
When you think of chicken with peppers you imagine a second fat, greasy and not very digestible. However, with a few simple steps you can make it a light second prick. Little oil in the bottom of cooking, peppers deprived of the skin and aromatic herbs in abundance are the numbers for a successful recipe.
INGREDIENTS FOR 4 PEOPLE:
for the pastry:
- 300 gr flour 00
- 3 medium eggs
for the bechamel sauce:
*300 gr http://lasagnam.it/blog/2017/04/22/la-bechamel/
for the filling:
- 1 kg peppers
- 450 grams of boneless chicken oval
- 1 white onion
- 2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard
- rosemary
- peel of a lemon
- extra virgin olive oil
- salt and pepper
METHOD:
For the dough: knead the ingredients by hand or with the planetary until obtaining a smooth and homogeneous result. Collect the dough in a ball, wrap it with the transparent kitchen film and let it rest for at least 1 hour in a cool place, covered with a tea towel.
Roll out the dough by hand or with the machine to a thickness of about 2-3 mm. Obtain them rectangles of dimensions just below those of the pan. Cook them in abundant salted water.
For the chicken: boneless chicken thighs, marinate with rosemary, grated lemon peel, mustard, salt and pepper for one night. Brown them in a pan with a little oil until the skin is colored. Bake in oven at 200 degrees for 20/25 minutes. Cut into cubes.
For the peppers: bake in oven at 200 degrees for 30 minutes. Just remove them from the oven, put them in a plastic bag for about 30 minutes. When you are warmed, remove the skin.
Cut 1/3 of the peppers into fillets, the other 2/3 sauté in a pan with the onion cut into thin slices and then shake. Season with salt.
For the béchamel sauce: http://lasagnam.it/blog/2017/04/22/la-bechamel/
Compose your lasagna: place a layer of béchamel on the base of your pan. Cover with the pastry, sprinkle the fillets of pepper and frayed chicken here, touches of pepper sauce and again béchamel sauce and a sprinkling of grated cheese. Repeat the procedure three more times. You have to do four layers.
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Cook the lasagna, depending on the size of the pan, from a minimum of 15 minutes to a maximum of 30 minutes, until a nice golden crust is formed.
TWO TIPS FOR YOU:
- After peeling them, you can marinate the peppers in oil, garlic and aromatic herbs such as mint, parsley and marjoram.
- Before baking the peppers
