One of our favourite things to order at Ristorante Vinicio, across the river from our apartment in Bagni di Lucca is pollo mattone, or brick chicken as the English call it. It is half a chicken sort of flattened between 2 hot surfaces. It is delicious. Marco serves it by itself with a piece of lemon to squeeze over it. It is quite salty and there is always a hint of rosemary.
One day while wandering through Lucca I saw in a shop window, a terracotta device accompanied by a sign – pollo mattone. I immediately purchased said device and later carried the almost 4 kilo item home to Australia with me. I have experimented a couple of times and while I haven’t duplicated Marco’s brick chicken, I think it was pretty good.
the dish
nearly 4 kilos with the lid
I started with a small chicken which had been butterflied and marinated in fennel, garlic and chilli – not by me. I bought it already prepared at the Powerhouse markets from an organic chicken supplier. I put the dish and lid in the oven at 220 degrees and let it get hot. In the meantime, I browned both sides of the chicken in a frying pan. I then placed the browned chicken in the dish, put the lid on top and cooked it for about half an hour. The cooking time would depend on the size of the chicken. This one was quite small and cooked well in half an hour.
Allora! - pollo mattone
We have a winner!!!