An Experiment That Turned Out to be a Success

I'm sort of excited about this.

This afternoon, some kind of hunger for fettucine al fredo came over me. Now, I love pasta, and I love sauce. Al fredo? Not so much. However, and who knows why, but I wanted fettucine al fredo this afternoon.

I had no idea how to prepare it. And thus, the experiment was born.

Okay.

I chopped half an onion and two cloves of garlic. I threw 1/4 cup of butter into a sauce pan and let it melt, afterwich I threw in the onions and garlic and let it saute until glistening and limp.

In the meantime, I salted a pot of water and brought it to a boil and dropped my fettucine into that.

Once the onions and garlic were ready, I threw in 1/4 cup of flour and let it cook down.

After this, I pour in about a 1/4 c. white wine into the onions and garlic to deglaze the pan. Now, here is a note to remember if you cook with wine. I recommend using a sturdy pinot grigio for cooking. I generally say, cook with a wine you would drink. BUT. A lot of people that I know drink moscato or reislings or chardonnay. Do not cook with any of those. Reason being, they are sweet wines, more inclined for an evening on the porch watching the sun go down, than for sturdy cooking. Certainly do not use a sweet wine for this type of dish. If you don't drink, feel free to use more chicken stock, and that is fine too.

Well, tonight, I dropped the wine in, let it deglaze and then I poured in maybe another 1/4 cup of chicken stock and then a small carton of half and half. All the while, I am seasoning and reseasoning with salt, pepper, red pepper, and just a little thyme. How much of these seasons you use depends on your palate. I say that all the time but it's true.

So, now the sauce is beginning to take shape. By now the pasta should be boiling away nicely at a slightly lower temperature than full bore. It's going to take about ten minutes for the fettucine to cook.

I now pour some olive oil into a separate pan and once it is hot, I drop in boneless chicken breasts which have been seasoned with salt and pepper only. That's it. That's all. Let these chicken breasts brown and crisp up in the olive oil.

Pour, I would say, 1/2 cup shaved parmesan cheese into the sauce. Let it melt. Reseason to taste, with cheese or salt, pepper, whatever makes you happy. Drain the pasta, allow just a little bit, maybe 1/4 cup of the boiling water to remain. Here is the reason why. You're going to pour your sauce onto the pasta and mix it together. The pasta will absorb so much moisture that you need a bit more moisture to balance it out. Reseason with salt, pepper, and red pepper, maybe even a touch of nutmeg.

Pull it out onto heated plates and serve with hot bread, a good salad, and yes, if you wish, a good pinot grigio.

Mange, mange! Blessings to you!!