Pollo al Vino Cotto

During my last visit home, my parents challenged me to cook dinner. As I've mentioned, I wasn't much of a chef while living at home, and I think they wanted proof that Alex doesn't do all of the cooking while I skipper around in the background. Anyway, I found a delicious recipe in my mom's Mario Batali cookbook for chicken in wine sauce. I shopped for the ingredients, brought them home, and began working. Within minutes, my mom was in the kitchen, chopping beside me. And before I knew it, she'd started cooking, ditched the recipe, and created her own version of dish I planned to make. Though I was slightly mad for a second or two ("Fine! You just do the whole thing! Will I EVER be allowed to do ANYTHING in this house?"), I realized that moms will be moms (would we have them any other way?) and, of course, it tasted delicious anyway.

Today, we re-made Mario's chicken in wine sauce, and I am smug to report that it tasted even more delicious when we followed the recipe (boo-yah!). I really, really love this dish. Though there are some annoying steps, such as blanching and peeling almonds, its so worth it because the flavors absolutely melt together. It's sweet but slightly tangy, and the sauce smells so yummy -- honey, wine and cinnamon simmering together gently, sigh. We served this over rice with a small side salad.

I haven't posted a link to a recipe in a while, but I'm going to send you all over to the Food Network post for this one, since we really did follow it word for word. My only note (from both attempts) is that the sauce takes way longer than 20 minutes to boil down to 1 cup. Otherwise, get your prep work done early and get ready to taste some perfection.