Chicken Riggies

I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year’s — I can’t believe it’s 2011!  How was your 2010?  Does 2011 look to be better than last year?  I had a great 2010, but 2011 may look to be even better!!  One of the dishes I had over the weekend was Chicken Riggies aka Chicken Rigatoni.  By searching for “chicken riggies” on Google, there’s an entry for it on Wikepedia (haha): “Chicken Riggies or Utica Riggies is an Italian-American pasta dish native to the Utica-Rome area of New York State. It is a pasta-based dish usually consisting of chicken, rigatoni and hot or sweet peppers in a spicy cream and tomato sauce, although many variations exist”.  With that being said, it makes sense that you can find Chicken Riggies at various Italian restaurants in Syracuse.  In fact, I can’t take any credit for this recipe since my mother is the one who made it and whose recipe is from one of the local Italian restaurants.  You’ll notice that it calls for 5 pounds of chicken and 3 pounds of rigatoni.  Don’t fret!  One of the joys of cooking (rather than baking) is that you can easily change recipes to your liking and/or serving size without ruining the dish (what, you don’t want to cook this dish for 15 people?).  Happy New Year… enjoy!!

Ingredients:

• 5 lbs.. of chicken breasts, cut into cubes
• flour & melted butter, enough to coat chicken cubes (about 1/2 cup of each)
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 4 white onions chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1/2 cup cherry peppers, chopped
• 1 cup sweet vermouth
• 3/4 cup hot sauce
• 2 tbsp chicken stock base
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 cup melted butter
• 2 quarts marinara sauce
• 1/2 cup grated cheese
• 1 quart heavy cream
• 3 lbs. cooked rigatoni

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray.
2. Toss cubed chicken with flour and melted butter to coat lightly.  Place chicken on baking sheet and bake for 25 minutes.
3. In a pan, saute onions, garlic, and cherry peppers in oil.
4. Deglaze pan with sweet vermouth and add hot sauce, chicken base, and black pepper.
5. In a separate pot, melt butter and add marinara sauce and grated cheese.  Add chicken and heavy cream.
6. Add the onion and sweet vermouth mix to the chicken mix.
7. Blend chicken mixture with rigatoni and serve warm.