Country Style Pot Roast Chicken with Sherry

Several months ago, my parents excitedly presented the three of us each an autographed cookbook called "3 Chefs: The Kitchen Men" featuring recipes by Michael Bonacini, Massimo Capra, and Jason Parsons - three chefs who have a cooking show together on Canadian TV that I know nothing about because I don't exactly have access to Canadian TV.  Since then, I have come to learn that these three are celebrities of sorts in the culinary world.  Michael Bonacini, in particular, is the Bonacini half of the Oliver & Bonacini enterprise that operates several restaurants in Toronto - one of which, Auberge du Pommier, is high on my wishlist.  I remember flipping through the cookbook when I first got it and being somewhat intimidated by the recipes, so I stashed it away and kind of forgot about it.

Prized cookbook autographed by Massimo Capra

Fast forward to last week.  My family was looking at venues for a party we are to host next year, and one of the venues under consideration is catered by Oliver & Bonacini.  Not surprisingly, I was rooting hard for this venue, but alas, for a number of reasons we are going with a different place.  Catering by my dream team was not in the cards after all.  To soothe my disappointment, I decided to fetch my 3 Chefs cookbook and try one of Michael Bonacini's recipes, as if that would somehow make up for my loss.  Well, some people practice "shopping therapy;" I call this "cooking therapy."

I decided to try the Country Style Pot Roast Chicken with Sherry because it seemed less intimidating than all the other recipes.  Instead of a whole chicken, I decided to use only chicken thigh because that's the part of the chicken I like best anyway.  I also had to substitute a couple of the ingredients because I couldn't find them at my local store.  Instead of sherry vinegar, I just used plain old red wine vinegar, while pearl onions were replaced by chunks of Vidalia onion (about 2 onions).  Of course, the following week I went to McGinnis Sisters and saw pearl onions there, when I no longer needed them.  Go figure.  In any case, the cooking itself wasn't too bad, although I had to split the batch in half because my pot wasn't big enough to hold 3.5 lbs of chicken plus all the other ingredients.  And the result?  I was floored.  Bonacini is so successful for a reason - the guy can come up with a darn good recipe.  Everything from the tartness of the juice and the articoke hearts to the slight crispiness of the chicken skin from broiling was divine.  I will most definitely have to try this again soon.

Chicken in the pot

Country Style Pot Roast Chicken with Sherry

Dinner is served!

Recipe courtesy of:

The 3 Chefs: The Kitchen Men cookbook; an online version can be found here