Recipes For Two Utica Favorites Included in National Cookbook
Utica is getting national recognition for two local favorite dishes. Cook's Country released a new cookbook featuring recipes for Chicken Riggies and Utica Greens.
Cook’s Country executive food editor Bryan Roof toured the country to find the best dishes and 150 of those recipes are in 'Cook's Country Eats Local' cookbook.
Chicken Riggies was so popular, there was even a description included in cookbook, along with the recipe.
Around Utica, New York, the word "riggies" refers to the city's signature dish, rigatoni in a spicy, creamy tomato sauce with onions, peppers, and tender boneless chicken. Brimming with hometown pride for this Italian-American specialty, locals will advocate enthusiastically for their favorite versions, and anyone within earshot weighs in. Along the main drag, Genesee Street, we queried a woman in a gray business suit. "Georgio's has the best," she responded, "hands down." A man in a stark white lab coat stopped short. "Georgio's is good," he said, "but Chesterfield restaurant has the original." That assertion caught the attention, or should we say contention, of a third guy, delivering FedEx packages. "Nah... You really want to go to Teddy's, up in Rome. They won RiggieFest a few years running." RiggieFest? You read that right. It's an annual competition among restaurants and home cooks that fills the Utica Memorial Auditorium. The fest had come and gone for the year, but we spent 24 carbo-loaded hours running around Utica tasting and talking about riggies before developing our own version.
You can order Cook's Country Local Eats at Amazon.com to get both local recipes along with 148 others from around the country.
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