There comes a time in every man’s life when he wishes to enact his power of cooking not over a barbecue, but in the kitchen. And so, when my girlfriend and I decided to attempt a pasta dish, what we had started was a flavor revolution in the house beyond what we had ever experienced — people liked it. People really wanted it. Since our first couple of dishes, I have since taken over every aspect of this dish, but sometimes I’ll let my nephew help with cutting the vegetables, or dumping the sauce into the pan / pot. But what is it that we did? Well, I’ll tell you here.
The Ingredients
2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 green, 1 red bell pepper
8-12 white button mushrooms (or any mushroom you prefer), sliced
2 spears broccoli
Parsley
Seasoned Salt
Olive Oil
Garlic (Cloves and powdered)
Onion Powder
Ragu Classic Alfredo sauce, 3-4 jars
Pasta of your choosing
The Chicken
We decided that the chicken most properly applicable to this would be boneless, skinless chicken breast. My intention is to use free range, antibiotic-free chicken one day — but until then, store-bought is sufficient (it still tastes really good).
The Vegetables
Of course, having a chicken dish in one color is not very aesthetically pleasing. Green and red bell peppers would interrupt that plain look of chicken and sauce, and broccoli just happened to pop into my mind of things that would work. Let us not forget button mushrooms! Delicious little guys, aren’t they? And of course, two or three cloves of garlic finely chopped gave the chicken a very delicious flavor during the simmering stage.
The Seasonings
Our chicken alfredo dish included the usage of extra virgin olive oil, seasoned salt, coarse ground black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and a nice helping of parsley (trust me, that is beneficial).
The Pasta
Our choice of pasta is fettuccine, but you can use any pasta shape you wish to use.
The Bread
We have a local grocery store which bakes bread fresh every day. Whenever we wish to grab some bread, we go to this store. If you have a local place which bakes fresh bread, more power to you. If not, I’m sorry to say — it’s just not the same. Sweet French bread happens to be the number one replacement in the event our store sells out of bread, which has happened before.
The Preparation
Cut chicken into 1/2” to 1” cubes.
Slice bell peppers or dice them to your preference. The flavor profile is the same either way I have cut it.
Slice the mushrooms if you didn’t buy them sliced.
Oil the pan with the minced garlic, parsley, and onion and garlic powders mixed in evenly
You may use a Dutch oven if a pan is not sufficient in size.
The Cooking
My preference is to trim the fat during preparation, but that’s optional and not 100% necessary. I place the chicken into a cast iron pan which already has the mixed olive oil and seasoning mix. (Around this time I start water for the pasta.) Once I have cut it all up, it’s time to add heat. Anywhere between medium and medium-high is perfect so long as you stir to prevent the chicken from becoming stuck to the bottom of the pan (if you happen to not be using cast iron, that is).
Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Cut the bread along its length to spread butter and garlic powder, and cut these into individual slots. The bread takes 10 to 12 minutes to finish, but your oven may be different from ours, so do what you need to do to adjust for time.
I don’t measure, but I cover the chicken pieces in seasoned salt and parsley until they look uniform. After I have tested that they are properly cooked through, I lower the heat to a low-medium heat and add the vegetables and mix them thoroughly, and let them steam for around 15-20 minutes before pouring the sauce into the pan. Once that is bubbling hot, you’re ready to spread it over your pasta and serve with some garlic bread. Here, we just take whatever serving we wish to have so we always have way more than enough for leftovers for five or six people. If the measurements for the chicken seemed a little high, that’s because that’s what I do to ensure everyone gets nice and full from pasta, garlic bread and chicken Alfredo.
Of course, I should mention that this recipe was extracted from a bazillion different websites available on the internet, so if this is your recipe, I should mention that the brand of seasoned salt that I use is called Raven’s. They are a local deli here in California which also makes their own brand of jerky and sauces. So it can’t be EXACTLY the same haha!
Thanks for reading. Enjoy. By the way, if this was hard to read, it’s because I have never written a recipe before. So my apologies for that.
centrilius 