I made the following chicken and pasta dish on Holy Thursday and got a lot of comments on it when I posted the picture on facebook. It was such a hit in my house, I made it again on Easter Sunday evening after our day of lamb! Now, a lot of people would call it a sin to mix chicken and pasta together, but this is an Italian-American thing which I have no issue with. Why? Because it’s delicious!

First, boil up 2 pounds of macaroni. I highly recommend mixing pasta cuts here because it gives a nice texture. I combined regular rigatoni and rigatoni with ridges. Now you don’t have to get the pasta mooshad, leave them a little to-the-tooth because you are gonna bake them in the oven as well.

While the water is boiling, you’re gonna whip up a real quick sauce—not quite a madeena—just a very basic tomato sauce with only a few ingredients. So in a heated skillet, add some olive oil and one diced red onion. Sauté until it softens a bit and then add in some chopped garlic. Then add in 2 cans of crushed tomatoes (nice sweet LaFede Jersey grown are my favorite as I think you all know by now), a little salt and black pepper. Simmer for no more than 20 minutes. (Turn the sauce off when the pasta is done.)

You’re going to also obviously need chunks of chicken in this dish which, in my case, I had leftover from a roast the night before. But you can par-poach some breasts and do it that way. (To poach: Cube chicken breasts and/or thighs into about 30-40 pieces, place them into a pot. Cover with 2 cans of low sodium chicken broth and bring to a boil. Once it’s boiling, lower to a simmer, cover and leave on the stovetop for about 10 more minutes.)

In a large casserole pan, ladle down some sauce and then add in your rigatoni with a little of the pasta water, your chicken chunks and squares of mozzarella which should be cut into about 20 sugar cube sized pieces. You don’t need “fresh” mozzarella here, use about a quarter of a block of any store-bought dry mozzarella (I recommend BelGioioso brand). The final ingredient is a can of pitted black olives which should be scattered about. Top the mixture with the rest of the sauce and bake in the oven at 350 for about 20 minutes.

The kids really enjoyed this, especially my youngest son who is a HUGE olive fan!

Once it’s out of the oven, garnish with fresh chopped basil, cracked black pepper and grated cheese. It paired nicely with a wine we got as a gift from the Glorie Farm Winery called “Lunar White” (Malboro, New York). A sweet, light local vino.

I’m not exactly sure if this dish has a name (I’ve seen variations with pepperoncini added) and I know there is a similar recipe called “Chicken Riggies” made famous in Utica, New York. I can pretty much guarantee nothing like this exists in Italy, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it in your Italian-American or American home.

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter Weekend and I look forward to a busy spring with lots of food and lots of fun!

Next Monday, I’ll be teaming up with WFDU’s Christine Vitale to film a cooking show where we’ll be whipping up my brand new deep-fried sausage meatballs, alongside sautéed broccoli rabe and a very old-school drink called a “Bocce Ball.” I’ll be sharing the video on here as soon as it’s out of the editing room so stay tuned…