Skip to main content
hunter's chicken

hunter's chicken

6.1
A chicken dish cooked with tomatoes, mushrooms, and herbs in an Italian style
  • noun
  • UK
translation icon : pollo a la cazadora
  • The restaurant's special tonight is hunter's chicken prepared with fresh herbs and tomatoes.

Examples

  • The restaurant's special tonight is hunter's chicken served with crusty bread.

  • She learned to make hunter's chicken after traveling through Italy last summer.

  • A hearty hunter's chicken is perfect for a cozy family dinner.

  • I love hunter's chicken for dinner.

  • Have you ever tried hunter's chicken?

  • A hearty hunter's chicken casserole is perfect for a cozy family dinner.

  • After her trip to Italy, she often cooks hunter's chicken with mushrooms and spices.

Synonyms

cacciatore
vshunter's chicken
4 6.5

A cooked meat dish from Italy with tomatoes, onions, herbs, and sometimes wine

is the narrower Italian-style casserole focused on mushrooms and herbs
chicken cacciatore
vshunter's chicken
2 4.6

An Italian chicken dish cooked in tomatoes, mushrooms, and herbs

matches the key's Italian casserole identity and ingredients
chicken casserole
vshunter's chicken
2 1.6

A baked dish of chicken and vegetables cooked together in the oven

is the specific Italian-style tomato and mushroom casserole version
chicken cacciatora
vshunter's chicken
7.0

An Italian chicken dish cooked with tomatoes, mushrooms, and herbs

is identical in ingredients and Italian casserole style
chicken Marengo
vshunter's chicken
5.6

A dish of chicken cooked with onions and mushrooms in wine and tomato sauce

is similar but without emphasis on wine braising technique
chicken provencale
vshunter's chicken
3.3

A dish of chicken cooked in a tomato, garlic, and olive oil sauce with herbs from Provence

uses Italian herbs and mushrooms rather than Provençal garlic and oil

Surface Forms

Morphology

hunter's + chicken

The phrase is compositional: 'hunter's' signals a style or preparation associated with hunters and 'chicken' names the meat, so a learner who knows both words can infer it is a chicken dish prepared in a 'hunter' style. However, the exact ingredients and culinary sense (tomatoes, mushrooms, herbs; akin to cacciatore) are not fully predictable from the parts alone, so the relation is only partially transparent. Many languages have equivalent 'hunter-style' culinary terms, which supports partial recognizability but not full predictability.

Etymology

Hunter's chicken may come from the Italian phrase 'alla cacciatora', which means 'hunter's style'. The hunter in the name refers to people who cooked chicken with tomatoes, mushrooms and herbs they could find, making a simple one-pan stew, so today hunter's chicken means a chicken casserole with those ingredients.