Angelo Pellegrini's Braised Chicken with Wild Mushrooms (p. 422)

Here's another recipe that actually called for rabbit -- I made the call to switch out to chicken instead. 

The first steps are reminiscent of making shake and bake, which growing up we called Chicken Amelia, because my sister Amelia loved it and could make it on her own from a pretty young age.  This one is made up of just flour, salt, and pepper, and the chicken pieces are doused in it.

Cook in olive oil until the chicken pieces are thoroughly browned.

Remove the chicken and cook up some delicious diced bacon in the pan. This smells amazing, obviously, but it smells even better after adding some herbs and veggies; celery, parsley, thyme, rosemary, and a dried red chili.

Cook for several minutes but don't allow the celery to brown.

Add the chicken pieces back in, as well as dried mushrooms that had been soaked in hot water, then removed from the water and chopped up. Stir in the drained liquid from the mushrooms, tomato puree, some wine, chicken stock, as well as a little flour to thicken up the sauce. Actually, the recipe called for arrowroot, but I couldn't find it at the grocery store, and I was completely fine with a substitute. 

Then cook, covered, for about an hour.

This is pretty much amazing. The chicken falls apart and is completely tender because of the long period of braising, and the flavor is spot on, with a little bit of heat from the chili, and a delicious thick sauce of bacon, celery, and mushrooms. I would eat this again and again.

bacon -- $2.99 (Plenty left for a Father's Day breakfast tomorrow!)

chicken -- $8.11

celery -- $2.99 (I just used one stalk)

wine -- $6.99 (this was for one of those 4 packs of tiny wine bottles. I didn't even use half of one, and I'll have Matt finish it up when he gets home, but I just hate the idea of opening an entire bottle of wine and not being able to drink it.)

Total Cost of Angelo Pellegrini's Braised Chicken with Wild Mushrooms: $21.08

($5.27 per serving)