Chicken fettuccine alfredo is a
classic American-Italian Dish that everyone loves and I'm going to show
you how to make the ultimate version. Now I have to tell you before we go any
further, I have to preface this by saying this is by no means an Italian recipe,
certainly not an authentic Italian recipe, a traditional fettuccine Alfredo, when it was
invented in Rome, it was just literally pasta with butter and cheese and that's literally
it and if you go to a restaurant in Italy, most of the time they don't even
have something like this on the menu, maybe in some tourist areas they
do, but certainly not with cream, But this is very much an American-loved dish and
I get comments and questions every day asking me to update my fettuccine alfredo that I did
like 15 years ago, well maybe 13 years ago, so I figured it was time to redo it, like I said,
not authentic by any means but it is delicious. Okay, so sometimes a creamy fettuccine slaps. Let's just be honest with you. Let's start
with the chicken, now what's really important is that the chicken is sort of pounded nice
and even, I'm going to cook the chicken whole, like whole breast instead of cutting it up
because I think it's just better presentation. To a skillet, I'm going to add just a tiny
bit of butter, about a tablespoon of butter, because I'm making half, I'm making
like a half a pound of pasta, not a whole pound so I'm just
going to use a tablespoon. And then you're gonna use some garlic and
herb seasoning, make sure that that chicken is really well-seasoned, a little paprika just
for color, for some reason this paprika is more orange than red, um but you know still good,
no problem. And I'm just going to hit it with a touch of salt from over top, sort of press
it down flip it over and do the same thing. I'm adding just a little drizzle of olive
oil to the butter because the olive oil stops the butter from burning,
which is really nice and helpful. That's going to be the base of some good
eating. Add your beautifully seasoned chicken, I'm actually just gonna do two and then
I'll keep that one for something else. That's perfect, and you're just gonna go
ahead and let that saute until it's pretty much fully cooked through, and because we
pounded it so it's nice and thin and even, it won't take more than maybe about
three minutes or so on each side. In the meantime, make sure your water
is coming up to a boil for your pasta and I'm going to go ahead and smash
and mince a few cloves of garlic. Oh look how gorgeous. That is beautiful. Cook that all the way through then remove to a
plate and just set it aside until we need it. Just a smidgen more of butter, not much at all. Chicken is resting, now you see all those bits
in there? Those are all delicious things, okay, that's all delicious flavor and we don't want to
lose that. That garlic is already super fragrant, which we love. To which we are going
to go ahead and add some heavy cream. It's like a pool, looks like a lot but remember
this is a very creamy and luxurious dish. While that happens, gonna go ahead and
add your pasta to your boiling water. I'm gonna go ahead and get that down in there. That water really evaporated but it's okay and now just go ahead and let that heavy
cream just boil and reduce while the pasta is cooking, and about I'd say halfway
through I'll show you my next step. It's been about four minutes so now what I'm
gonna do, I'm going to add some cream cheese, and reason why I add cream cheese
is because I feel like the cream cheese just helps that cream sort
of adhere to the pasta really well. It makes a difference, trust me, I know you
might not think that it does but it really does. You know me, I wouldn't do an extra
step unless I felt like it was worth it. A good pinch of salt because we haven't
seasoned this yet and it's quite rich and it does need a bit of salt, and then you're
going to add some freshly grated parm. Beautiful. Pasta is cooking really nicely, I
just, my cream cheese is at room temperature but I just cut it into little cubes
because it makes it easier to melt. And I'm just going to whisk this in, and
until the pasta is ready I'm just going to keep this on simmer so that it keeps
thickening up and reducing a little. I'm gonna tong the pasta directly into that sauce, now you'll notice that my sauce is not
bright white, that's because my sauce has flavor. Okay? That's because we've got those
drippings from the bottom of the skillet, that's because we've got those spices. That is
all called flavor, okay, if it's too bright white then it's got nothing in there, you know? Mix
that all together, very Saucy just how I like it. I like to let it all cook together, because
what happens is the pasta will absorb that sauce and then you'll end up with a really dry
fettuccine alfredo, which we don't want. And now what I'm going to do is,
I'm going to take chicken breast, I'll just start with this one
here, it's so juicy oh my goodness. And we're just gonna cut it, you can
add it right in and mix it all together. For presentation purposes, I'm just going to go
ahead and fan it on the very top, I'll show you. A little bit of that, you can take a little
bit more of your seasoning if you want to, I'm also going to add a little bit of parsley
when I do go to serve it, a little bit of hot pepper flake if you like a little bit of heat,
which we do. A little bit more cheese on top, and listen, I call this not
authentic, but authentically delicious. And when you go to serve it
you know you're just gonna have to.. Look how creamy that is like honestly
we did not skimp on the richness, we did not skimp on the flavor, look at those
ribbons I just need to dive in! I'm starving. Hot! Oh no! Worth whatever I scorched in my mouth. My goodness gracious mm-hmm,
that's like a must-have, a must make, a must-have. You will love
it, it's a necessity at this point, it is phenomenal. Laurainthekitchen.com for the
written recipe, hoping you enjoyed spending time with me. Make this this week, it's outstanding
and I will see you in the next one, bye!
