Chicken Chasseur with Rigatoni

I have exciting news to report from my kitchen, ladies and gentlemen. On Tuesday, I had my first guest chef! My former roommate and good friend, Amy, came over to help me cook dinner. We ate gobs of hommus with carrots and cucumbers before finally settling on what to cook, from Rachael Ray's arsenal, of course: Chicken Chasseur with Egg Fettucini (we used rigatoni instead). Chicken Chasseur is a classic French dish which combines chicken and mushrooms with tomato and wine sauce (we substituted wine with chicken broth). It's very similar to the Italian version, Chicken Cacciatore, which uses capers, oregano, basil, olive oil instead of thyme and sage and butter. Chicken Chasseur means "hunter's chicken," which is how the hunters cooked their chicken, I guess, after a day of hunting. Here's someone else's equally valid theory that I found on the Internet:

Chasseur is French for hunter, and this recipe evolved from the way game was cooked, often tough old birds. Even if not tough, sometimes the bird was shot too close so that the flesh is torn up too much to cook the bird whole. The solution to either shortcoming was to slowly simmer the pieces in wine and tomatoes until the meat falls off the bones. Mushrooms add to the earthiness.

Cacciatore is Italian for Hunter, so you won't be surprised that Chicken Cacciatore is very similar. Some variations may be identical, in fact, but the Italian versions are more likely to be cooked in red wine rather than white wine and brandy, and, especially is southern Italy, with more tomatoes.

This dish is gorgeous served over egg noodles or mashed potatoes.

Amy and I thought the pasta dish tasted slightly sweet, probably due to the heaping teaspoon of sugar I added to cook with the carrots. Are you sure we should have added "a rounded teaspoon of sugar," Rachael Ray? But still, it tasted hearty and quite good and I wolfed it down hungrily. It's so fun to cook with someone else in the kitchen, as a team, and we had the radio going, and it was a blast. I highly recommend you try cooking with someone. The anticipation to eat what you made is greater and more exciting! And it's so nice to share a satisfying meal that you cooked together.

After dinner, we went to the Asgard for 2010 pub night for more food and drink and then, Toscanini's for decadent ice cream. I had a scoop of Lemon Butter Vienna Finger. It was glorious and so summery. Amy had the opposite, Ginger Snap Molasses, which reminded her of Christmas. Until next time.... Great Eats! :)