Chicken, Pasta, Lemon and Cream Sauce

This is pretty quick to prepare and very tasty. It also has half the fat and half the calories if you eat half as much. But it's good enough that half as much might just work.

Bring to a boil while moving ahead with the chicken and the sauce

• 6 quarts water with 
• 1 Tbsp salt
• one pound of fettucini dry pasta (or equivalent fresh), Find it but don't cook it yet but put it somewhere handy. Notice how long the package says to cook it. (Somewhere around 8 minutes, probably.) 

Turn down the heat and put a lid on the pot so its ready to use in a bit.

Then you need

• 4 chicken breasts - boneless, not over 1 inch thick. (If thicker, butterfly them. Well, and you you don't need four.) The idea is to have one skillet full of chicken breasts.)
• 2 Tbsp butter - not margarine or anything with the word "spread" in the name
• 2 Tbsp olive oil - or any vegetable oil
• 3 medium lemons - slice 3/8 inch thick, discard the end slices (Meticulous people like to remove the visible seeds. I just eat around them in the finished dish.)
• salt
• pepper

Melt the butter with the olive oil in a 12 inch skillet. Heat to medium and brown the lemon slices on one side only. Remove the lemon slices from the heat and set them aside on a dinner plate.

Salt and pepper the chicken. Then, on medium-high heat, brown the chicken breasts on two sides. I prefer this browned but not with hard crusts on the surface of the meat. Remove the chicken and set them on top of the lemons.

• 1/2 to 3/4 cup white wine - Use a drinking wine, not a cooking wine. Use cheap wine if you want. Expensive wine doesn't help the dish.
• 1 cup chicken broth - the less salt the better
• 1/3 beef bouillon cube (1/2 tsp granules) - I wish I knew where to get this without salt.

Pour the wine into the skillet while still hot. It's still on medium high. (If you don't like wine, replace it with more chicken broth plus a teaspoon of sugar or honey or 4 sliced grapes.) Stir and scrape the bottom of the pan to dislodge all the tasty particles of chicken before they burn.

[This is a good time to start the pasta cooking by turning up the heat on the water. While you are simmering the chicken, below, it will begin boiling and you can add the pasta. Set a timer for the pasta so you don't overcook it. You want it slightly undercooked if you choose to mix it with the sauce below. When the timer goes off, or when you test the pasta to be done enough, remove the pasta from the water to a large bowl or cookie sheet. Don't pour out all the water as you may need some.]

Add the chicken broth and bouillon cube to the pan. Bring to a boil. Add the chicken to the pan. Put the lemon slices on top of the chicken and reduce the heat to medium. Simmer covered for about 7 minutes on each side. Keep the lemons on top of the chicken after turning it over. Test the meat by feel. It might not take the full 15 until the chicken is no longer rubbery (and raw). Try not to overcook the chicken but don't leave any of the meat pink or red either. (Balance. Balance. Balance.)

When the chicken is done, remove it and the lemon from the pan and set aside with a covering plate or strip of foil to keep the heat in.

Increase the heat to high, don't use the lid and stir continuously to reduce the liquid by one-half. Reduce the heat to medium.

• 1 cup heavy cream - microwave this for 44 seconds to warm it up, pour into the pan and stir until the cream is thoroughly incorporated.
• 1 Tbsp capers - (optional)

You have two choices here:

1) Add the pasta to the sauce and simmer for 2 minutes. It may need thinning. If so, use some of the pasta water to do keep it from being too thick. Prepare individual plates with a serving of pasta with the sauce, a smattering of capers, a chicken breast with a little sauce drizzled over it and a few lemon slices on top. (Something green looks really good on the side of the plate. Peas? Parsley? Spinach? Sugar snap beans?)

2) Serve home style with the sauce topped with capers in a bowl, the chicken and lemon slices arrayed on their own plate and the pasta in its own bowl. Everyone takes some pasta, chicken, lemons and sauce.

Fresh Pasta

I just wanted to record the proportions when I make fresh pasta. Maybe someday I will add in the full instructions of what to do with this:

I start the salted water heating up when just before making the pasta. About 6 quarts of water and a Tbsp of salt work ok. It takes just about as long to bring the water to a boil as to mix and roll out the pasta. (Note that this means it takes less time to make fresh pasta than to make the dry kind from the grocer's. But normally you would sit around while the water came to a boil and, this way, you are getting the pasta ready during warm up.)

• 1 1/2 c flour (All-Purpose flour makes good pasta. Different kinds of flour change the texture and taste of the pasta. Never use 100% Semolina flour at home. It may work for store-bought pasta but, by my experiments, if you want to use some Semolina flour, stick to about 1/4 Semolina to 3/4 All-Purpose flour.)
• 1/2 tsp olive oil (extra virgin)
• pinch of salt
• 2 large eggs

Measure flour onto a table (or counter). Make a depression in the middle and add the other ingredients. Break the egg into a bowl if you need to check the quality before adding to the flour. (No need to antagonize it first.)

Stir wet into dry ingredients with your hands. (Which you, of course, washed and dried first.) Form a dough and knead a bit. You have to experiment to get the dough just wet enough but neither too wet or too dry. If it sticks to the rollers on the pasta machine, its too wet. If it crumbles, its too dry.

If the dough is too wet, add some more flour and knead in little by little until it's right. If the dough is too dry, add water a half teaspoon at a time and knead it in until, again, it's right.

Let the dough set for 5 minutes. This isn't rocket science but do wrap it in plastic wrap, foil or a damp cloth to keep the outside from drying too much.

Roll out the dough in the pasta machine. It seems to take about 7 times through the rollers to be ready to cook. Start with the rollers open fully. Do about 3 times at that setting. Then reduce the setting and roll it through once on each until you get it right. Resist the urge to roll it too thin. Fresh pasta needs to be thicker than dry. (They say you can do this with a rolling pin and the table. I've never tried it.)

Sauteed Spinach

We took a romantic weekend to the Renaissance Hotel in Dallas. Used up some Marriott points and ate too much. The restaurant on the ground floor served us something sort of like this. 

1 Tbsp Olive oil	Heat in small skillet that can go in oven
2 cloves garlic, peeled, whole	Sauté in skillet until spinach wilts
2 cups fresh leaf spinach (frozen will work)
2 Tbsp cream (the amount isn’t critical)	Remove skillet from heat and add.
1 Tbsp grated Asiago cheese (Parmesan or Romano will work but just aren’t as good)	Sprinkle on top and move pan to oven under hot broiler to soften cheese.

Serve in skillet.

Note that Asiago cheese sometimes doesn’t melt well. If you wait for it to melt, it will get tough. Just broil it until the cheese is hot. (You can do the same thing with a propane torch if you wish. Just move it around a little over the top of the pan.)

Artichokes in Cream Sauce

If you've been reading the other recipes I have posted, you know I change every one of them. But not this one. My recipe card for this says "Paden '89" because I got this from Mike's mom's cookbook way back when. It's so good, I can't think of one thing to change.

This recipe feeds enough to 3 or 4 people. Only a small portion is necessary for each person.

• 1/2 stick butter (4 Tbsp)
• 1/2 beef bouillon cube (1/2 tsp powdered beef bouillon)
• juice of 1/4 lemon (2 tsp)

In a small saucepan, heat the above ingredients on low heat until the butter melts and the rest mixes in thoroughly.

• 1 can artichoke hearts - rinse, halve and drain (or get small artichoke hearts, rinse and drain) [Note: Do not get the marinated artichoke hearts. The canned ones have zero spices and zero oil.)
• 1/2 c heavy cream
• 1 or 2 shakes of nutmeg

Add these three more ingredients and heat on very low until warm and the cream and butter mix with each other. (Trust me! Up to a point the melted butter floats on the cream. Then, bang, they mix.) Do not let this boil.