Chicken Riggies · Chef John

Chop the chicken thighs into rough cubes, slice the onion and mushrooms, and crumble the sausage out of its casing.

Heat the olive oil in a large, wide saucepan over medium heat.

Add the onion, mushrooms and sausage with a pinch of salt and pepper, and cook, stirring, for 6 to 7 minutes — the vegetables should soften and the sausage should take on brown edges.

Stir in the chicken, turn the heat up to medium-high, and cook about 5 minutes until it browns.

Pour in the Marsala and scrape the pan hard with a wooden spoon, lifting every browned scrap off the base.

💡 Those stuck-on brown bits are pure concentrated flavour. The wine dissolves them back into the sauce — this single step is most of why the finished dish tastes so deep.

Let it bubble 2 to 3 minutes, until the wine has mostly cooked away and the pan looks nearly dry again.

Add the crushed tomatoes, chicken broth, cream and water.

Simmer for 30 minutes at a lazy, occasional bloop — not a boil. Splash in more water any time it tightens up too much.

Stir in the chopped peppers, the halved olives and the garlic.

Simmer another 15 to 20 minutes, until the sauce thickens enough to hold a line when you drag a spoon through it.

Season with salt and black pepper, then stir the parsley through.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of lightly salted water to the boil and cook the rigatoni for about 11 minutes, until tender but still firm at the centre. Drain.

Fold the drained rigatoni into the sauce and stir in the grated cheese.

Cover it and leave it alone for 1 to 2 minutes so the rigatoni drinks the sauce up into its ridges and hollow centre, then serve.

💡 Do not skip this rest. It is the difference between pasta sitting in sauce and pasta that has actually absorbed it.