Scarpariello

Built on a technique older than any restaurant that’s ever served it. southern Italian peasants would have chickens that grew too old to lay eggs and therefore they meat was tough. With plenty of wine and vinegar, a byproduct of the grapes they had in abundance, they braised tough birds in wine and vinegar to soften and tenderize the meat and its cause its what they had. Italian immigrants brought that instinct to America, found abundance for the first time, and made something extraordinary out of it.

Then immigrants made it to American, where scarcity turned to abundance. And in that new world, that technique evolved in the what I think is the greatest chicken dish ever. Braised chicken in wine and vinegar, with the addition of sausage and spiked with cherry peppers. It’s a northeast staple that is still largely unknown, under ordered and and under appreciated. This is chicken scarpariello.