Italian Chicken Dinner
I recently made a three-course Italian dinner featuring chicken and Cavanna fresh pasta.
Salad
The salad was simple, with a quick lemon vinaigrette. The punch of the acid played nicely against the sweeter tomato sauce. The fresh, ripe Hanover tomato was a good foil by itself, against crisp Romaine lettuce.
Tomato Sauce
I made a tomato sauce to dress the pasta, and coat the chicken.
The tomato sauce was made my first sauteeing red onion and garlic in EVOO, with salt and pepper. Next, I added this to whole Italian canned tomatoes in the food processor. Whizzshed it up, after adding a touch of honey. Then added it back to the pan. Next, I added about 1 Tbsp. of white wine and 2 tsp. of tomato paste. It thickened while the chicken was in the oven.
Pasta
Cavanna Pasta makes a nice sausage tortellini. I boiled this in salted water, and dressed it in the tomato sauce before eating. This benefitted from the thickened sauce, after adding the wine and paste. The sauce used on the chicken “thickened” on its own in the oven.
Baked Chicken
The chicken breasts were pounded thin, and salted/peppered. To each I added roasted red pepper, fresh mozzarella cheese, dried thyme, and a piece of parma ham. Next, I rolled it up, and held it in place with toothpicks. I added these two stuffed and rolled breasts into an oven pan, after coating the bottom with EVOO. The tomato sauce topped the chicken before hitting the 400 degree oven for 18 minutes.
The presentation would have benefitted from a sprinkling of shredded basil leaves. The plate was too “red.”
In this photo, you can see the chicken’s stuffing:
In all, it was a delicious meal.