They call it Stuck Chicken.

They call it Stuck Chicken for a reason.

A cut-up chicken, or assortment of chicken parts, annointed with some olive oil and a touch of white balsamic vinegar, sprinkled with salt and pepper; optional (my additions) mustard powder and paprika.

Throw it in a roasting pan with some quartered potatoes and onions, about six or seven whole garlic cloves, and a few sprigs of rosemary; preheat the oven to about 450℉, stick the roasting pan in, and forget it for about an hour.

When panic sets in (and trust me, it will), react with white wine (or white vermouth), sprinkling liberally all over the pan. Forget about it for another ten minutes.

And yes, it will likely stick (somewhat less these days than in the past) to the bottom of the pan and have to be scraped off. Hence the name.  No non-stick pans for us!

Serve it with a vinegary green salad, crusty bread to dunk in the juices, and zesty homemade red wine if you have it (ahem) or a nice Chianti (BANFI yes!). Trust me, you can’t (really) mess this up.

It is the go-to dinner of my childhood, and that of my siblings and cousins; pictured above made in Mom Palma’s roasting pan used many times (obviously) for the same recipe. She learned it from her mother.

But my Anagni, Italy born grandmother Maria was a purist and only put chicken in the pan, and not much if any olive oil because of the fat already in the skin  (as did my cousins in their brick oven in Anagni on Sunday mornings when I began visiting there in the 1980s.); my Austro-Germanic father suggested the addition of quartered potatoes and onions, and earned his stripes on that.

Yeah, Johnny.

New Year? Old dish. Awesome memories.