I watched it through to the tasting. Since I was looking for it, I could see that the onions and peppers were what we'd call overcooked in California, but the ladies also did say they were part of the "sauce" so maybe they really wanted them cooked down, not "vegetables". Pickled cherry peppers may have a punch (which they said) from the brine, but they're awfully mild as peppers go. I promise you your thighs did no harm! The white meat could easily have been dry, but chicken is chicken. It looked like they cooked the sausage dry too. You can't substitute small drumsticks for whole breasts without adjusting the proportions and timing, but that's just a matter of knowing how to cook chicken. The leaves were mostly for color, but there's no reason the celery leaves would have tasted inferior to parsley.

There's nothing wrong with the recipe, but it seems a bit meh. It's food. But I think it appealed to what you wanted it to be more than what it actually was. I might make something kind of similar, but I wouldn't make this as presented. I also didn't like that they said to get the oil literally smoking. That's bad! If oil is smoking it's transforming into bad for you stuff. I forget the whole story. Won't hurt as an accident, but not the way one should cook. Better to start with a high heat oil than to tell people overheat what they have on hand. Re the name of the dish, who knows, but they left out the simplest explanation, which is that it's named after a person whose name it was. Bon Appetite has a version as well.

You could adapt Lidia Bastianich's sausage and peppers, which is very similar minus the chicken. It's really good. https://lidiasitaly.com/recipes/sausage-and-peppers/

sounds superb

You changed the entire recipe so maybe the original as written is good?

I don't recall ever having that recipe or anything like it but you reminded me that I haven't made Chicken Spiedini in a long time. I need to put it on the menu sometime soon.

There are several different twists on the recipe and I've only tried a couple.

Chicken Spiedini.

The only changes I made to the recipe were to improve it, as by adding Serrano chilies. The recipe also says that chilies can be added, if you want more heat. Therefore I did not change the entire recipe. The recipe includes chicken thighs, and so they are also part of the original recipe.

I reheated it last night and had it with basmati rice, and it was much better this way.

Here are some variations that others have made. I think it is better with rice than potatoes.

This is an American-Italian recipe and is not from Italy.

^That would also save some time, as the chicken could be baking while the vegetables are cooking. I would add the sausage to the vegetables and broth. One thing that happened in the oven was that the sauce lost some of its thickness while baking, and so I think it would be better to bake the chicken without the vegetables, sausage, and thickened broth, as you suggest. This way the sauce would remain thicker.

After the chicken was done on Tuesday, I skimmed some of the fat off of the sauce and saved it. Then yesterday (Wednesday), I added a tablespoon of this fat to the rice, which added extra flavor to the rice.

It probably is better to use a whole chicken so that you can have both white and dark meat, but I do not have a skillet large enough here (although I do in L.A.), and so I would have to use half a chicken and freeze the rest of the chicken.

The Italian sausage is a nice touch, and my cacchiatore does not have that in it.