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Rachel Roddy’s confit chicken (pollo sott’olio).
Rachel Roddy’s confit chicken AKA pollo sott’olio. Photograph: Rachel Roddy/The Guardian
Rachel Roddy’s confit chicken AKA pollo sott’olio. Photograph: Rachel Roddy/The Guardian

Rachel Roddy’s recipe for Italian confit chicken

Confit chicken, or pollo sott’olio, slow-cooked in a bath of fragrant extra-virgin olive oil on a bed of herbs and zest

It is estimated that fragments of 53m terracotta amphorae once containing olive oil make up Monte Testaccio in Rome. The hill was constructed between the first century BC and the third century AD, when billions of litres of oil from Baetica (modern-day Spain), Tripolitania (Libya) and Byzacena (Tunisia) were imported into imperial Rome. This was not simply oil for drizzling on leaves, but fuel for an empire – for lamps, cleaning, balm, perfume and medicine. Once the oil was decanted, the impregnated amphorae couldn’t be reused – which is why they were smashed and, in highly organised feats of stacking, made into a hill that rose nonchalantly, the Leonard Cohen of landmarks, in the middle of Rome.

Over the centuries, the hill – which stands at 35m and has a circumference of half a mile – has taken on a life of its own: grass, shrubs and trees have taken root on its slopes; restaurants, nightclubs and mechanics at its base. Depending from where you approach it, Monte Testaccio can look like a woodland wilderness, a hub of charming trattorie, a scruffy and seedy clubland, an urban farm or a neatly stacked exhibit. It is from inside Testaccio’s other unlikely landmark, a former slaughterhouse, that you can best understand the monte, the pieces of broken pot visible on the slopes.

The slaughterhouse and olive oil pot hill are just two of the many reasons Testaccio feels so edible. It was appropriate, I thought, that I passed both on my way to see a man about a recipe for chicken in olive oil.

Domenico Cortese comes from Tropea, a town almost at the tip of the toe of Italy’s boot, famous for its sweet red onions. The eldest of five children, his grandfather and father were both butchers, and he grew up around the family shop. He learned his father’s vocation, and found it was not his own. His career as a chef is a sort of careful stacking of experience: near his mum as a kid; in hotels as a teenager; as a dishwasher and the chef at an Italian restaurant called Messina, in Rotterdam; as a private chef to the Argentinian ambassador in Rome; head of a police canteen; sous chef in the American Academy in Rome; running a supper club with his Danish partner and baker, Sophie.

Now they have their own place, Marigold, which seems like a culmination of all the layers of experience and hard work: an oasis of exceptional food, just beyond the hill of olive oil pots. While Domenico’s great skill is undoubtedly pasta and vegetables, I particularly appreciate his use of herbs and citrus, and the way he brings out flavour, which is apparent in this, his recipe for chicken with many herbs, lemon, orange and ginger, cooked sott’olio – under oil, or confit.

Domenico is unequivocal about using extra-virgin olive oil, for its unrivalled flavour and conduction: oil diffuses heat better than air, which is why meat confined and cooked under oil is so tender and almost velvet-like, rich but, surprisingly, not fatty. With cost in mind, he concedes that you could use half olive/half vegetable oil. Either way, it should almost cover the legs (about 800ml) – only the very top of the skin should be above the oil.

Another pleasure of this dish is the scent, in preparation and at the end of cooking when the blackened herbs, garlic, wrinkled strips of citrus and ginger make the hardworking olive oil seem like a balm or kitchen medicine, just as it has always been. Domenico sends me away with the last two portions of chicken, which will store under oil for days, or weeks if I put them in a jar. As we drive home, I can feel them slosh and sway in the olive oil as we pass the hill of olive oil pots.

Confit chicken (pollo sott’olio)

After cooking, you can reuse the now deliciously flavoured oil to cook more chicken or make roast potatoes – simply filter through a sieve then keep it in a jar in the fridge as use as needed. Refrigerated, it will last for months.

Prep 20 min
Rest Overnight
Cook 3hr 20 min
Serves 4

4 chicken legs, approx 220g each
Salt and pepper
Small bunches thyme and sage
2 lemons
1 orange
8 garlic cloves
, peeled
2 inches root ginger, unpeeled, cut into thick slices.
800ml extra-virgin olive oil or an olive oil/vegetable oil mix

The day before, carefully and generously season the chicken, rubbing salt and pepper all over the legs, paying particular attention to the flesh near the bone. Put in a container, cover and leave in the fridge overnight.

Pull the chicken from the fridge an hour before cooking. Choose an ovenproof dish or casserole large enough to accommodate the legs in a single layer. In the bottom of the dish, make a bed of the herbs, the pared zest of the lemon and orange (a peeler is best) the garlic and ginger. Lay the chicken on top, skin-side up and pour over the oil, which should submerge all but the very top skin of the chicken.

Put in the middle shelf of the oven at 180C (160C fan)/350F/gas 4 for 20 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 140C (120C)/275F/gas 1 for three hours.

After cooking, let the chicken sit for at least an hour. To serve, lift the legs from the oil with a slotted spoon, letting the excess oil drip back into the dish.

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