How Italians Cook CHICKEN (and why they don't eat it more often) 

REUPLOAD! The first video was accidentally deleted, hence the reupload 😅 We were still reading all of your lovely comments when we lost it, so please drop one below!

Harper, when you combine the salt with the egg whites, the protein structure of the whipped egg whites holds the salt in suspension. This allows the salt, which is a mineral (rock) to act as an insulator, thus allowing the food to cook slowly, and stay tender and juicy. Hope this helps.

I’m Sous Chef at a famous country club in Fla. We do prime rib and fish with the salt method. Just goes to show, Eva is a real professional! I didn’t comment then but I watched this video this morning. Pasta Grammar is what makes my Sundays.! It’s usually the first thing I watch. Even before church. Love you guys.

Italy should declare Eva and her mother national treasures. Love Eva's cooking.

I am from Toscana and for us chicken is really a main dish. Every restaurant here used to make roast chicken and rabbit with potatoes and you can find roasted chicken in every market or supermarket made with "girarrosto" tipically served with roast potatoes. Chicken is always present in our "grigliata mista". Another tipycal dish of my region is "pollo e coniglio fritto" which is gorgeous! In summer we also use to make "insalata di pollo" with maionnayse and boiled chicken. During war they used to make a sauce with chicken and tomato for tagliatelle. We use a lot also of chicken breast. So it's not true that Italians do eat chicken when they are I'll!! 🙂😉

My Italian grandmother rarely made chicken as an entrée. She made her chicken soup, but when we were sick, she'd make a special poached or boiled chicken and serve it with rice. Very simple, easy to digest, and made with tons of love.

My wife and I lived in Rome back in 1979-1983 and ate a lot of rotisserie chicken from small stores , it was often served with roasted potatoes. This was not just in Rome but pretty much in many parts of Italy .

Well its true that we don't have very much chicken dishes, but the most important meal of the week, the Sunday lunch with family (mostly in the old days) was based on chicken, the classic "pollo arrosto con patate"

Our Hungarian grandmom made wonderful chicken paprikash, which just had browned chicken pieces, lots of sliced onion, tons of paprika, and water for braising. Some people add red bell pepper, garlic, tomato paste etc but it really doesn’t need it if the paprika is good. It’s eaten with handmade noodles called spaetzle and most people put sour cream on top at the end and stir it in- either in the pot or on the plate.

When I first started watching your channel years ago I almost thought Eva was an actor pretending to have an Italian accent but as time went on and I learned more about your channel I knew you were the real deal

One word: Minestrina! Pastina in brodo was always the staple in the farms near Parma where my family is from. My grandfather would add his home-made red wine to his bowl. Still love it to this day with tons of Parmigiano and pieces of bread. Gnam!

Growing up in an Italian-American household we never put stewed chicken pieces in the soup, only tiny pasta with broth. My mother would then shred the chicken and serve a second course by making a spicy tomato based sauce which we would eat with Italian bread followed by a refreshing salad. So good.

When I went to Rome earlier this year I had pollo ai peperoni for the first time and I became obsessed with it. Now it's probably my favorite chicken dish to make. Also when I was in college I would frequently make pastina in brodo di pollo, I didn't know it was a legit Italian dish, let alone that it had a name until today. It was just my very cheap, poor college student go to meal (delicious though).

My mother used to make what she called "tubetinis" which was ancini de pepe with half the water poured out, a little salt added, a little olive oil, and an egg drizzled in. She fed this to my kids when they were babies and toddlers and hey still love it today in their 30s.

15:35 damn it, as a kid (36 years ago) we had holidays in italy every year. I had exactly this dish and I loved it. for years I've tried to figure out what exactly I've been eating without any luck. Thank you so much for finally finding an answer!! 😭😍

My favorite chicken dish is from Georgia (country, not state) and is a soup called chikhirtma. Hard to pronounce, but simple to make. Poach a whole chicken (often an unwanted rooster - no egg loss!), reserve the chicken to serve alongside the soup. Brown onions in a pot (best if you can do this in chicken fat skimmed from the top of the broth, but if it was too skinny a bird, butter) and when the onions are just getting some color, add two heaping tablespoons of flour and stir into a roux. Slowly add the broth, whisking out any clumps. When the broth returns to a boil, season with salt and reduce the heat. Beat 2-3 eggs in a small bowl and drizzle into the broth while swirling the broth with a spoon so that the eggs don’t clump together. Add lemon juice or white wine vinegar to taste and a large handful of chopped cilantro and some black pepper. Some people serve by placing the meat in the bowl and serving the how soup over it, but in our family we serve the meat on a family plate and everyone takes which piece they like, and put in the soup or not.

My nanna, who was from Napoli (and was an amazing cook), used to make one chicken pasta dish for leftover chicken. She'd cut up leftover chicken, and boil it firstly with onions, then add spaghetti, and finally peas to make a soup. I have fond memories of it and have made it a few times!

In Mexico we do something similar as the soup you made called sopa de fideo and as a kid I couldn’t get enough!

the topic is spicy. the hair is fabulous (both of them). the set is great. and this new format??? with the backdrop?? ayee keep going pls. yes

Oh btw, pollo a la sal (pollo alla sale) used to be a fancy dish in the 90's in Uruguay, it was almost everywhere. I'm not sure from where it came from, but my grandma didn't cook it, so it wasn't anything traditional. My father, who was more open to new things used to make it, but nothing else than chicken and salt was used. Today it's something totally forgotten and vintage.

The reason why there's not much chicken in Italian restaurants menus is really simple: because nowadays it's a cheap kind of meat, "poor people's meat". And also because chicken dishes are usually so simple (but still great) that we'd rather have them at home instead of paying extra. When we fancy a good roast chicken we go to the local "Girarrosto", a specialised place for that, but there are also restaurants which serve a whole roast "galletto" (little rooster) per person. Strictly to eat with your bare hands!!

Eva, "I feel French today." LMAO... absolutely GREAT! La Guillotine! Why I love your channel! Okay, my all-time favorite chicken dish is: Chicken Polenta, and probably my own creation as I have not seen it anywhere else and just made it one day when I was feeling creative in the kitchen. I make the polenta with the stock from the chicken legs and thighs I slow cook earlier. Then, I remove the chicken from the bones into small pieces. In a separate pan, I sauté in olive oil minced carrot, onion and celery, add basil, garlic and marjoram, then canned tomatoes with the chicken. This is simmered to make a sauce/ragu for about an hour. Pour this over the polenta, and enjoy. It is one of my favorite comfort foods!

Pastina and broth is one of my favorites ❤️ We ate this as kids, and I still eat it today. With a sprinkle of cheese. When you are sick we call it Italian Penicillin lol

Why doesn't the salt suck all the moisture out of the chicken? Osmotic pressure equilibrium. Salt will pull water out to a point, but then salt starts to get into the chicken, carrying water back with it. (same mechanism at work in brining). Eventually, equilibrium is reached. No more salt entering the chicken, no more water leaving the chicken.

Grew up in an Italian American family from New York and our take on pastina was adding cottage cheese to cooked pastina. We fed it to older babies and toddlers as a quick, easy and nutritious dish that every kid loved! (Including the big, adult kids lol)

Salt on the outside of meat makes it form a “pellicle” which is a protective layer that keeps the juice from being sucked out by the salt. That’s why this and brining works.

Well done and explained! I come from Emilia, and I can tell you that "pollo ripieno" ( stuffed chicken, which I still cook in wintertime), slowly cooked in its broth, was a much cherished Sunday dish in the Sixties for a lot of people .Pastina in brodo is my comfort food since my childhood, but when I was dating my Neapolitan husband, I asked him if he felt like having a pastina and he replied" Why? I'm feeling perfectly fine!" 😂That's when I discovered that a gigantic portion of my Country considered all liquid minestre, pastine and veggie soups to be a sick person treat! As kids, whenever sick, we would have riso in brodo with spinach and a loooot of Parmesan. ;)

In Poland we do have an identical dish like polo al sale and we use this technique not only for fish but alsofor all meat from hunted wildlife species.

If you didn't want to roast a whole chicken, would the salt method work with bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs and drumsticks?

In Croatia the last dish, besides for kids and when you are sick, is also used when you are hung over :)

All the dishes that Eva makes look so good. 👌😀❤️

I can remember reading about salt buried chicken in a Chinese cookbook about 40 years ago. Growing up in Ireland in the 60's chicken was a rare treat usually roasted for a Sunday lunch. In the late 60's rotisserie chicken started to appear in the shops and in the 70's chickens and chicken portions started to appear on supermarket shelves. Supermarkets were a new thing then and factory farming was just taking off to supply them. Chicken as a cheap everyday food is a very recent phenomenon, not just in Italy.

I remember Eva's short hair... NOW LOOK AT ALL THAT HAIR!!!!!! Does it have it's own room? WOW! I thought I had a lot of hair. Love it!

BELLA YOU ARE ONE OF BEST COOKS IN WORLD THANK YOU

I love the way Eva cooks! She makes it look like I can make it at home. It looks soo delicious and I think I may make this first one for my family very soon! You are both awesome! Thank you for inviting us into your lives!

Eva, regarding salt: In general, prices are higher in Norway, above both the US and southern Europe. When it comes to salt, in my opinion, it is priced way too high! One exception though, we can buy large bags of coarse sea salt, a bag of 4 kg (ca. 9 lbs) cost only $3 (so 30 cents for a pound). It’s really good salt (not iodised though). When I was a kid, that’s the salt we used to thaw ice outside our door (but now we have special road salt, that is NOT food grade, it has some nasty chemicals added). I toss it in the blender for every day use and I blend it fairly fine. After doing that, I pour it out on a baking sheet to remove excess moisture - often put it in the oven for a while on low temp. Then I add it to mason jars. Pure sea salt, no additives! To avoid clumping, I add a teabag ir two filled with rice (great for other things where you want to avoid moisture, like certain cheeses which isn’t consumed fast enough, add a «ricebag» to the cheese bag or box! Anyways, hopefully you can find some bulk salt also over there. Thanks for your ever great videos, the two of you together is such a great combo, 1+1 = 5+ here❣️ At least❗️ ☺️🤗💓❤️💓

Eva’s sun-bleached hair is gorgeous 💛

Chicken piccata is my favorite chicken dish. I realize that it is not exactly an Italian dish but I love it so much.

Harper, I use old chickens (we call them Boilers or Steamers in Australia), and I cook them with tomato passata, with various vegetable and spices, and cook it slowly for about 3 hours, give or take. Mamma mia it tastes very nice. That is my favourite dish!!

I think it is maybe a regional thing, but here in Tuscany, we eat chicken very often! From my experience, especially on the seaside, it's probably the dish eaten the most during the summer because you don't want to use the oven when it is 30 degrees (86 fahrenheit) and, spending less then 10 Eu in the rotisserie, you solve the dinner for the entire family without the need to sweat :-P PS: you are spot on about why, long ago, chicken was eaten only on special occasions: it was a prudential measure of every pre-consumerism country village because eggs could make the difference between life and death. I've lived in London studying its history and I've learnt that there, chicken was served as a luxury main course during Christmas Day dinner. It translated to the traditional turkey feast in America because all the chicken brought by European pilgrims died during the first winter (with half of the Mayflower's settlers) and natives of the Pawtuxet tribe literally saved pilgrims' lives by introducing them, among other things, to turkey hunting.

No clue where Harper found “chicken funk music” to use during cooking segments but boy did it make my day

I was brought up on Pastina and my family asks for it any time they don’t feel well. More recently though we were introduced to Jook (rice gruel) and they ask for that when they are tired of Pastina.

My mother-in-law, from northwest Sicily, made this for me years ago when I was recovering from surgery. I will always remember this dish with love.

Thank you, Harper, for the warning and the time stamp! I also love the shirt you are wearing. At any rate, thank you both for another marvelous episode! Sundays nights are fun with you two ... I almost forget that the next day is dreaded Monday!

I love both of you. Please I need a cookbook, I know that it will be informative and picturesque plus many delicious recipes and techniques. Mangia💕....my grandmother was from Verbano we use a bit more rice. Merry Christmas 🎄

In egypt we have a similar dish to the pastina with broth, It's made with chicken broth and a pasta that is very similar to your pastina. It's very tasty and also considered a side dish as we cook a lot of chicken in Egypt so every home always got some broth ❤️

Salt pulls water. Perception of "juicy" is more fat related. When less water is there, more fat, so more juicy.

Sorry guys. My mother who is from the north of Italy makes an incredible pasta sauce with chicken. It is a tomato based sauce that is out of this world. Almost as good as her ragú di carne (bolognese). Ok. Not as good but faster to prepare and still amazing.

Having grown up in Chicago, there was an Italian-American dish there called, 'chicken vesuvio' which is not 'from Italy' but was really good.

I don't know why you guys fell off my radar, but I'm glad you're back. I absolutely love your chemistry together, the BEST youtube couple.

You two are so silly! I love how you tease each other. Thank you for sharing. This video answered a lot of my questions!

We love you guys. Always entertaining, and your dishes look delicious. ❤️

Same recipe in France, it's 'Poulet en croûte de sel', chicken in salt crust. Extremely good, as you say it keeps all the juices inside. Very famous recipe with fish like seabass int the 80's in Michelin star restaurants.

It's always interesting to see which new techniques Eva will showcase, I haven't dared to try that salt crust myself yet.

Chicken piccata, Chicken Romano , wedding soup .... thank you guys for another great video. i really enjoy learning from you

I’m Brazilian and I do something similar with the salt cooking. I get some beef ribs and completely cover it with coarse salt, put it in the oven for a few hours and then scrape the salt off before serving. It comes out very juicy. This is my first time seeing the salt with the egg white, so I will have to try it sometime. I think after you take the salt cover from the chicken, you could put it back in the oven on the broiler and brown the chicken. That way it will look more tasty, but still be very moist.

In Friuli Venezia Giulia they make "gnocchi con sugo d'arrosto": the sauce comes from stewed chicken (pollo in umido) with rosemary and parmigiano. Chicken pieces are added at the end. That's a very good dish!

"Gallina vecchia fa buon brodo," I've heard my father use this so many times; even to tease me. It is great to hear someone else say it. 🤣

A stewing hen is no joke. I came across one once in my local grocer, and it was cheap so I got it. What I did not know was that an old bird is a tough bird and instead of being done in about an hour as usual, it took almost 4 hours before the meat fell off the bone. But I will tell you it was the best tasting broth I've ever gotten from a chicken. Asian store, good to know.

Pastina with chicken broth is our ultimate comfort food!

My Nona used to make sauce with chicken heads. Fresh home grown tomatoes, and garlic, etc, and chicken heads and when severed, the brains of the chicken heads were the second course. You crack open the scull to eat the brains. Yumm as I recall!

OK "arper (is it OK if I call you " 'arper"? Hey, Eva does! You asked for favorite chicken dishes. My favorite one *to cook* is Chicken Scallopini. I love the acidic bite of the lemon that offsets the richness of the chicken. Plus it comes together pretty easy & quick - once the chicken pounding is done. However, my other favorite chicken dish (that my wife usually cooks) is Chicken Marbella - not Italian, but from a little farther west - Marbella, Spain. THAT dish also has briny brightness - this time from green olives & capers - BUT offset by sweetness from prunes. The combination of flavors is really something special.

You two are truly amazing, but how beautiful is Arizona!!! More pics of the landscape outside please!😊😊

IM BACK! And Thomas Keller French Roasted Chicken yummy

the music tracks you put in the videos are mind blowing 😂

I was introduced to salt-roasted chicken decades ago by a recipe booklet that came with a Cousances enameled iron saucepan. When it promised "this will be the best-tasting chicken you will ever eat!" I just had to try it! The result was indeed amazing, fully living up to its promise. Yet there are things about the method Eva uses that are clearly better. The Cousances recipe called for mixing the salt (rock salt) with water, enough to give it the texture of wet beach sand. This is then put both over and under the bird. This can result, however, in the lower part of the bird getting soaked in brine, and thus becoming too salty to eat (this proved even more problematic when I tried the recipe with larger birds, especially a turkey). So, using beaten egg white in the crust, then dry salt underneath, makes much more sense -- and the splash of wine onto the latter looks adventuresome! The stickiness of the egg white would make it hold the salt together much better than water can; with water, the crust can break apart easily and thus expose parts of the bird while cooking. The other difference is that Cousances calls for fresh herbs to be added with the lemon stuffing: parsley, and at least two of any other herb of choice (rosemary, sage, oregano, thyme...) -- though I'm sure lemon alone is plenty to enhance the flavor.

When I was in Italy for a couple of years, a woman taught me to make “Pollo con Carote“ literally just grated carrots, cooked in olive oil, and a little bit of garlic. You cook your fillets of chicken in the pan in the carrots, then you pull out the chicken pieces, and the carrots break down and become the sauce for your pasta. Of course, you don’t eat the chicken in the pasta. You serve it separately for your Secondo.

I love the video upload better in the evening on Sundays anyway. Nice work, Eva as always. 😍🙏🏻

Growing up my Italian-American mother would occasionally buy a whole chicken at the grocery store. But usually Mom would get several chickens from the farmer we got our eggs from. Mom would bring the live chickens home & take them to the basement where we had a 2nd stove. Mom would put some water on to boil so that after she cut off the heads she could remove the feathers. (She did the same with the pheasants my Dad or Italian Grandfather brought home.) My only problem was with the smell that the process created. After they were cleaned & gutted Mom would cook the chicken in water (different of course). Then when done cooking & cooled, Mom would remove the meat & put it in jars, with the water, to can them. The chicken was used in the Winter to make homemade chicken noodle soup. The egg noodles were homemade by my Italian Granffather. (Quite a production in itself.) Mom would use the neck from the storebought chicken to help flavor the padta sauce.

The salt does absorb the water out of the chicken but then some of the salt dissolves back into the water and then the salty briney liquid gets absorbed back into the meat seasoning it perfectly.

When I lived in Indianapolis, there was a chef who grew up amish and he used the method of roasting in an ecasement of salt.

If you guys want a traditional chicken with pasta from Italy, you must make lorighittas from Sardinia. It is a pasta dish that has chicken in it. Very mindblowing! Not even well known to most most Italians

Eva: "I feel French today." cue guillotine shot. BRILLIANT EDITING HARPER

We always had pastina..."STARS" is what we asked for..on a cold day, nothing better..but must say we used LOTS more stars in our soup 😁

You know, you could always use a torch to darken up the skin of the salt crusted chicken. This technique is used in sous vide, a lot. Love the video

Awesome chicken recipes. I can't wait to try the salted chicken!!

That first dish is very very similar to a dish my mother made in my house when I was growing up once a month or so, and I continue to make to this day. Very simple and flavorful.

3:10 it was very nice of you to include the chicken in the music 😂

omg that look amazing. I might just try to make it this weekend when the family comes over. actually lol'd, literally when she said "I feel French today" excellent line/timing.

I said this in the first one, but my Grandmom used to make the Pastina with Orzo pasta instead of pastina, but still called it pastina. Someone was kind enough to put a response, but it didn't really address whether or not it was a valid substitute or if it was my Grandmom's preference.

Grazie Eva per queste perle di saggezza culinaria. Adoro il pollo alla cacciatora!

Probably my unbreaded fried chicken that I put a mix of garlic powder, onion powder, powdered ginger, and salt on after frying? Sometimes half bake with it spiced first in oiled glass casserole dish if going to top cheesy broccoli rice. Have about 5 other chicken dishes in the rotation, but that's everyone's favorite. Usually with cheesy garlic mashed potatoes, and fried unbreaded sliced okra and onion with a little Cajun seasoning.

I made your Pollo ai Peperoni (chicken & peppers recipe). Amazingly delicious! Thank you so much. I can't wait to try more of your recipes.

The confusion going on about "peperoni" is somewhat hilarious. An American friend was staying with me (in Vienna, Austria), and she wanted to do something nice and cook dinner for us. So she made a shopping list as I was going to the market anyway. Among other stuff it said "peperoni", so I bought long green spicy chilies, which are called "pepperoni" or "pfefferoni" here. I also got "paprika", which are green, red, or yellow bell peppers, and "paprika" which is a powdered spice made from dried and ground paprika and comes in a mild variety and a spicy one. When I came back and emptied my shopping basket, my friend was disappointed because I hadn't brought the spicy salami-style sausage she wanted. (Luckily, I always have a similar Balkan sausage in the fridge, so she was good to go.) Next time I'm taking her with me to the market, so we can sort it out immediately. Also, the cooking method with egg whites and salt is used all over the Adria on the Balkan side for fish - it tastes amazing.

I love ALL your super informative videos. I also love your beautiful kind of humor! As I was a kid, my parents also put a piece of "formaggino mio" in the pastina. Grazie for giving me a trip back to my childhood! Can't wait for your next videos. 😘

chicken recipe made in Sardinia: doses for 4 - four chicken legs (skinned) - a golden onion - 2 dried tomatoes in salt (peeled after blanching them) chopped together with a clove of garlic and parsley until they have the consistency of a pesto - a handful of capers - pitted black olives 100 grams - - 1 glass white wine - oil, salt brown the chopped onion in a pan in the oil until it becomes transparent, add the chicken legs and cook until golden, add the dried tomato pesto, garlic and parsley, mix, add the white wine, capers and the black olives, season with salt and finish cooking over low heat with the lid, until the chicken meat becomes tender and a not too thick sauce has formed. Buon appetito

That sneaky Chef Alfredo strikes again!! It's ok, I will gladly watch it again so your views stay in check. I like that the first dish uses yellow and red peppers because green bell peppers tend to come back to haunt me (burping). I find them sweeter and less harsh on my stomach. I also think they taste better in a shaved steak or Italian sausage sub with cooked onions. Has Eva tried those yet in the US? ps... anytime anyone in my family was sick we ate chicken noodle soup so I get why they say that.

Watching the Pollo Al Sale recipe, told my cardiologist about it and he said I am not allowed to watch your channel. LOL!!!

“Chicken is for sick people.” -Eva Grammar I’m going to use this as an excuse for my red meat consumption from now on.

Love watching and learning 🌹 nothing to do with chicken but had to let you know, my 8yr old granddaughter and I made your chocolate salami on Saturday, she took some to school for her friends to try now I have had to write out the receipt, they want it 🤣🤣 you have brought joy to a Nottinghamshire junior school, thank you for upping my granny status

yeh comment for the youtube algorithm

I'll give these dishes a try. To give you an idea of how luxurious it was, chicken was a frequent dish at the Medici's banquet table. This is the family that used to eat birds coated in gold leaf.

I've been making Pollo al pepperoni for over 40 years. And I grew up with pastina and butter or pastina and chicken broth. I still make it to this day. We ALWAYS have pastina in the house. It fixes everything. :)

Well actually one of the most famous Italian dishes is made also with chicken broth: tortellini in brodo. In my family we also have a tradition for sunday lunch, we call it "the 3 P dish": Pollo, Polenta e Patatine (roasted chicken with polenta and french fries). It's a variation of a classic Sunday lunch dish in the north of Italy, which is roasted rabbit with polenta and french fries.

I was watching the original upload of this video when it was taken down. I was so confused lol. I'm glad I got to finish it. 😅

Thank you for the chicken recipes, Eva. Like Harper we eat a lot of chicken because we like it. I was getting bored with the standard broiled chicken with varied spices, cut it up into sauces or rices, tonight I'm eating it cut up into arroz amarilla with tomatoes, pink beans, peas & carrots. I definitely want to try the pollo ai peproni.

to my understanding, the salt crust baking doesn't dry the food too hard because most of that salt is solid. if it isn't a part of a solution [in other words, it isn't dissolved] then it barely exerts any osmotic pressure to suck water out of the chicken. but i could be wrong x.x

Favorite chicken dish? I would say Jamaican Jerk chicken done properly. Other than chicken cutlet, I really didn't experience much in the way of Italian chicken recipes growing up. Everything with meat used either veal or pork for the most part. Around Christmas my dad and I would always fry a bunch of fish - typically sperlani and calamari.

Mmmm... I bet that salt roasted chocked would be great with a quick crisp-up in a very hot oven for a number of minutes... Mmmmm mmmm!

Ooh, scarpetta! It took me a little while to figure that one out :) ! I made the chicken with peppers today, and it was fantastic. I let it simmer for one hour. The smell is amazing. The chicken was definitely cooked (165F), and the sauce was thick enough for sopping! Thanks guys. Let me know when the house next door goes on the market, lol!