Monday, November 19, 2007

Pasta with Chicken in Tarragon Cream and Alugbati




Tarragon is so easy to grow. With so much in the garden, I am forced to harvest so often and of course use them. One Saturday afternoon of September (yes, that’s two months ago already and I’m just posting it now!), I just had to be more creative with tarragon.
After an hour of surfing the net, I learned that tarragon is mostly used in cream-based chicken recipes. So, I came up with my own. Here it is.

Ingredients

Pasta, cooked according to package directions – I only had spaghetti then. Most of the recipes I encountered made use of flat noodles such as fettuccini and tagliatelle.

Chicken, cut into small pieces – breast is the more popular part, I guess because you don’t have to be bothered with the bones. I had in my freezer chicken intended for Tinola. I used around 1/3 of a chicken here. I marinated the chicken with salt and pepper.

½ cup fresh tarragon leaves – chopped

1 pack/can heavy cream

1 cup Alugbati – there were around three similar recipes I encountered that used spinach. I have spinach in the garden but not enough for the recipe. So I harvested some Alugbati instead. Alugbati, for those who do not know, is a wild/native green leafy vegetable which my mom introduced to me as the Pinoy spinach.

Roasted garlic – I roasted a few heads of garlic the previous day for a pesto recipe. I used one whole head for this recipe. Although, minced fresh garlic will work just fine.

Olive oil and butter for sautéing

Water or chicken broth or pasta water

Salt and pepper, to taste

Procedure

1. Put olive oil and butter in a heated pan

2. Sauté (roasted) garlic

3. Sauté marinated chicken until cooked.

4. Put water, to deglaze the pan. Water should be enough to cover the chicken. Simmer for 5 minutes.

5. Add cream, tarragon and alugbati

6. Season with salt and pepper

7. Simmer for 10 minutes in low fire

8. If you find the sauce too thick, add more water or chicken broth. You can also use the water where the pasta was cooked.

9. Add cooked pasta and serve hot

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow! this looks really tasty! with alugbati pa ha? nice!

maire viola said...

HI there. Yes, it's very tasty and rich. The tarragon gives it a very unique flavor. If you don't know tarragon, you'll wonder where the distinct taste and aroma is coming from. Try the recipe! It's very simple.

Anonymous said...

grabe ate! that looks delish! ang creative mo talaga - gamitin ba alugbati?! :)

anyhoo, i tried tarragon also in other chicken dishes and my nephew loved it.

so envious of your herb garden kaso there's not much space here in the city. will probably do it in pots pag nakalipat na kami.

Malou said...

This dish looks yummy. What facinated me was the use of alugbati. Do you mind if I repost your recipe in my blog once I get my gears and make the recipe for my family?

Thanks for sharing. :)

maire viola said...

Hi Malou.

Thanks for dropping by. Yes, please feel free to post the recipe on your site.

maire

Anonymous said...

Your recipe looks really good but I recently learned from a nutritionist that alugbati paired with calcium rich foods produces a substance that can give you kidney stones