Kavi messaged from college and asked for the recipe for the creamy chicken she likes me to make for her. She made it — well, a quarter-recipe, because the dorm pots and pans are so tiny she couldn’t even do that half recipe below, we have to get her some decent-sized pots and pans — and said it came out yummy, so we are feeling triumphant.
Passing the recipe along — it’s a pretty basic creamy chicken with pasta. She’s not really comfortable cutting up raw meat, so I told her to have the Safeway butcher cut it up for her, and she really suffers from cutting up onions, so I had her buy the fresh chopped onions.
(If she wants to be a Sri Lankan girl, she’s going to have to make her peace with chopping onions, but that can happen later.)
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Remember that t. is teaspoon and T is Tablespoon.
1/2 Recipe for Creamy Chicken with Pasta
(makes 2-3 servings, 30 minutes if you know what you’re doing, probably more like 60 minutes if you’re just learning to cook)
1/4 c. olive oil
6 oz. (about 1 medium) chopped onion
3 cloves garlic, chopped
3 boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite-size pieces
salt to taste (start with about 1/2 t., add more at end if you want after tasting)
1/2 t. ground black pepper (optional)
1/2 c. liquid (sherry or white wine or water) for deglazing the pan
1/2 c. heavy cream
1/2 box pasta (usually we use penne, but whatever you like)
(In a large pot, set water to boiling for pasta, along with 1 t. salt. (If it’s going to stress you out to try to track both, you can do the pasta first and just set it aside until you’re done with the chicken, but I’ll give it to you the way I usually do it.))
1. In a large frying pan, heat olive oil on medium-high. Add chopped onions, stir them in. After a few minutes, add chopped garlic. (If you put the garlic in at the beginning, it’s likely to burn — garlic is more delicate than onions.) Cook, stirring as needed, until onions are golden-translucent (about 5-10 minutes?)
2. Add cut-up chicken, salt, and pepper. Sauté on medium-high, stirring occasionally. You want to let the chicken sit a little bit, so it browns on the bottom, because that adds flavor. But don’t burn it. Cook about ten minutes, until chicken is cooked through and lightly seared.
(Somewhere around here, your pasta water should be boiling. Add 1/2 box pasta to it, stir it in, check box for timing, set timer for appropriate time. I’d put a strainer in the sink at this point, so when the timer goes off, it’s easy to just dump the pasta in the sink.)
3. Add 1/2 c. liquid (sherry, white wine, or water) to the pan. It’ll probably hiss a little and if you dump it all in, it might splash, so pour gently. Scrape up (easier with wooden spoon than soft spatula) any browned bits sticking to the bottom (that’s called ‘fond’ and is a lot of what makes this tasty. We love fond).
4. Simmer another 5-10 minutes, stirring, letting the fond and liquid blend with the onions and garlic to make a nice sauce.
(Has your pasta timer gone off yet? Drain pasta in sink, then put pasta back in pot with a little bit of olive oil, stirring — that’ll keep it from becoming a sticky clump. Set aside until you’re done with chicken.)
5. Almost done! Add heavy cream, stirring it in, and then simmer another 5-10 minutes until it’s the texture you want. (I’d aim for fairly liquid-y, because it’ll thicken some when it’s mixed with the pasta.) Taste and adjust seasonings — this is where you add a little more salt if you want.
6. Carefully pour creamy chicken into pasta in pot, stir until well-blended. Enjoy!
(If you don’t have heavy cream, you can use butter and flour to make a roux, add milk, and then this sauce is called a béchamel. But that’s a lesson for another day. 😊)
(I don’t have a photo of the food, so here is a pic of me and Kavi that my dad posted recently.)
