Tag Archives: basil

Chicken Cellentani with Goat Cheese and Lemon

My friend Cassia has a blog full of lovely, lovely recipes. A while back she posted a recipe for this creamy pasta dish with lemon and basil, and I started hankering to make it the moment I saw her pictures. So on a lovely Sunday afternoon while Heidi and Baby James were staying with us, I whipped it up.

My first reaction: it was okay. Fine. Not bad, not awesome. I wanted to love it but was a little underwhelmed, so I decided not to blog about it because of my commitment to myself (and to you!) to only share recipes I truly love and would make again.

Then a couple days passed. Tuesday night my husband and I immersed ourselves in baking chocolate chip cookies and lemon cream bars, so I decided that it was time to eat the leftovers from Sunday so that we could focus our culinary efforts on the baking side of things. I wasn’t too excited about the leftovers, but I can’t stand to waste perfectly good food, so I pulled the pasta out and reheated a bowl for my husband and a bowl for myself.

And we dug in.

Oh my. It was like a dish transformed! “Wow, this is really good,” I said to my husband between mouthfuls. “Yeah,” he agreed. “You should blog about it.” “Yeah,” I said, engulfed in the wonderment of each bite.

I don’t know what happened to this dish as it sat in the refrigerator for a day and a night, but it was something magical. It got . . . creamier. Tastier. Really friggin’ delicious. So: know that on day #1 it’s a perfectly acceptable pasta dish. But also know that on day #2 and day #3 it becomes a marvellous concoction. Conclusion: if you are cooking for yourself and need something that will stay good or improve in the fridge over time, this is it!

Musical interlude: This is it! Ooooooh, I’ve finally foooooouuund someone, someone to share my life, I’ve finally foooooouuuuund someone . . .

Who the heck sings that song and why is it playing in my head with such clarity?

Ingredients

3 chicken breasts
1 cup flour
Salt and pepper
3 TBS olive oil
1 lb cellentani pasta (or any other small ridged pasta)
1 white onion, diced
6 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
28 oz can diced tomatoes, partly drained
Juice of 1 lemon
12 leaves basil, 10 minced and 2 chiffonade
1 T dried parsley
3/4 cup heavy cream
4 oz goat cheese

Mission #1: let’s get that pasta started. Boil some salted water, and dump it in!

When it’s al dente, drain it and set it aside for later.

While the pasta is cooking, cut the chicken breasts lengthwise into strips. Pat the chicken dry with a paper towel and season the strips liberally on both sides with salt and pepper. Then dredge the chicken in the flour and shake off the excess.

Heat 2 TBS of olive oil in a pan over high heat. When very hot, add the chicken strips.

Lower the heat to medium-high and don’t touch them for about 3 minutes. When browned on one side, turn them over and continue to brown until cooked through.

Look at that lovely, golden crust!

Remove the chicken to a plate and cut the strips into bite-sized pieces.

Gather the remaning ingredients to your bosom.

Yes, that picture is terribly blurry. But I have a very small and convenient scape-goat–one with poofy cheeks and a little fuzzy head. You can blame my photographic failure on the distractions provided by Baby James in the arms of my husband.

Oh, that Baby James. I miss him so much!

And no, I can’t manage to call him just “James.” He’s Baby James and that’s just that.

While the pasta is cooking and the chicken is frying, apply yourself by dicing the onions and slicing the garlic. Multitasking makes everything go faster.

Add another 1 TBS of olive oil to the pan and cook the onion and garlic until over medium-high heat until soft, about 5 minutes.

Mince up the basil while the onions fry:

And squeeze the lemon too.

By now the onions should be exactly where we want them, so add the partly-drained can of tomatoes, the minced basil, the lemon juice, and the parsley.

Bring the mixture to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

Things are smellin’ oh-so-fine ’round these parts.

Add the cream and chicken pieces, and stir to coat. Then add the goat cheese and stir the whole creamy mess over low heat until melted.

You’ll notice I didn’t cut my chicken into bite-sized pieces. But I darn well will next time! That Baby James. My culinary focus was totally shot.

Mix the cooked pasta with the sauce, and serve!

Garnish with the basil chiffonade.

And just remember: this dish improves greatly after a night in the fridge!

Click here for printer-friendly version: Chicken Cellentani with Goat Cheese and Lemon

Easy Asian Beef & Noodle Soup

One more recipe before I unleash the first of the Regency ball pictures–and it’s a good one. Drawing from my usual resource, this recipe is a fantastic little find. Inspired by Vietnamese Pho, this brothy soup is chock full of tasty tidbits, and the little bit of sriracha stirred in at the end is absolutely essential in taking it from a basic broth flavor to something satisfyingly complex and interesting. Picking out the pieces of steak, bok choy and mushrooms with a pair of chopsticks is (dare I say) really fun, and I will definitely be coming back to this soup. Thanks Mary Helen for creating such a great recipe!

It makes 4 generous servings, but could be stretched to 5, especially with extra noodles.

Let’s get down with our inner Asian side.

Ingredients

(Serves 4)

14 oz thin rice noodles

6 cups beef stock

3 TBS dark soy sauce

1 tsp grated ginger

3 TBS peanut oil

8 oz mushrooms, sliced

4 cloves garlic

1 large white onion, minced

3 baby bok choy, chopped

1 lb NY strip steak, sliced thinly

1 bunch scallions

1 TBS sesame oil

1/3 cup shredded basil

2-4 tsp sriracha, to taste

1 tsp chicken bouillon, to taste

1 pinch salt and pepper, to taste

Any thin noodle would work, but I used these. They had been hanging out in my fridge for a few months and it was time to put them to good use.

Cook the noodles according to the package directions. My fresh noodles just needed a couple minutes in hot water.

Drain them and set them aside.

Here are the rest of ingredients that will be appearing on scene today:

Give the ginger a rough grate–a microplane zester works wonders in a situation like this.

In a large pot, combine the beef stock, ginger, and soy sauce . . .

. . . and bring it to a simmer.

In the meantime, give the onion a nice mince.

Heat the peanut oil in a large skillet and brown half of the onion, the garlic, and the mushrooms. Give the mushrooms a nice go-’round with some salt and pepper.

Within a few minutes, they will become brown and beautiful.

Add them to the soup–but only after sneaking a taste!

While the mushrooms were sizzlin’, I gave the bok choy a rough chop.

Bok choy is such a beautiful vegetable–the slices look like flowers, don’t you think?

Brown the rest of the onion and the bok choy with a little more oil if necessary . . .

. . . and then add them to the soup as well.

Slice the steak thinly and on the diagonal.

I was a little concerned with the amount of fat in the steak, but it turned the pieces into melt-in-your-mouth morsels of glory.

Add the strips to the soup.

Thank you, New York Strip. Thank you, cow. Thank you, marbling.

The meat should cook within a couple minutes; stir in the sriracha to taste.

Don’t fear the sriracha! It will add a lovely depth, so please don’t skip it–you can adjust to your spiciness level, but the flavor it adds is not to be missed.

Plus, if you skip the sriracha I might start hyperventilating, and no one wants that.

Now this is very important: taste!!

Add the chicken bouillon if you need a little more flavor (I did), and sriracha if you want a little more oomph.

Give the scallions a quick chop.

And do a quick mince on the basil.

Stir in the scallions and sesame oil . . .

. . . add the basil, and salt and pepper to taste.

Lovely! Give it another taste just to double check the seasoning. If you underseason the soup it will be very ‘meh.’ If it’s tasting thin, that can easily be changed with more sriracha and/or chicken or beef bouillon. Yes, I know I’m beating a dead horse–but seasoning things correctly (correctly = to your taste) is a powerful thing. It has transformational magic.

Divide the noodles into bowls and pour the hot soup over them.

Serve with both chopsticks and a soup spoon.

Enjoy!

It may splatter some as you scoop the noodles out of the liquid, so diners beware!

Am I allowed to just fish for the pieces of New York strip and eat them? All? One by one?

No? Next time I might add 8 lbs of steak instead of just 1 lb. Everybody to the limit.

Click here for printer-friendly version: Easy Asian Beef & Noodle Soup