Better than Brittain Chicken Alfredo

I have yet another culinary adventure to report on. I had no class on Tuesday, and was looking for something to do, so I decided to make dinner for me and a few friends.
I’ve been craving chicken alfredo since I left home, and the thin, tasteless “alfredo sauce” at Brittain just hasn’t cut it, so I decided to make that. I went to publix and picked up some chicken and some stuff to make sauce, with the all of it coming in at just under $20 ($9 of which was for cheese, more on that later). When I got back, I headed to the kitchen to start cooking, and an hour later I was finished. A few friends helped me carry everything up to the 3rd floor lounge to eat. It had turned out perfectly, with a really rich, creamy, cheesy sauce, under tender, crispy chicken. I wish I had a picture to put up, but I forgot to take one in all the excitement. I’d strongly recommend this recipe to anyone who loves real alfredo and isn’t afraid to put a bit of time in in the kitchen.

Here’s the recipe:

For the chicken-

1.5 pounds chicken breasts
1 egg
Progresso italian bread crumbs

For the pasta/sauce-

1 pound fettucine
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1.5 cups heavy cream
2 cloves garlic
1.75 cups grated parmesan or romano cheese*
1/4 cup finely chopped parsley

*- Don’t be cheap when it comes to buying cheese. Nearly all alfredo sauce recipes are the same, so it’s the quality of the cheese, not the recipe, that makes a good alfredo sauce. Publix sells a bunch of parmesan cheeses made by DiGiorno for like $4, but they’re terrible. They’re tasteless and will lead to an awful alfredo sauce. I bought Locatelli brand peccorino romano, which I recognized from back home, for $9 for an 8 oz package. So it made up nearly half of my budget, but it was definitely worth it.

A quick note- be careful when working with raw chicken. Once raw chicken has touched a bowl, knife, fork, cutting board, etc., all of those things need to be cleaned in VERY hot water to disinfect them before they can be used for anything else. You also need to wash your hands in hot water using disinfectant soap after handling raw chicken.

Bring a pot with salted water to a boil (for the pasta). While it’s heating up, remove the chicken from its package, and pound it to tenderize and flatten it. I put the chicken in a plastic bag and used a hammer from my room to pound it, but use whatever you have. The most important thing is to get it flat enough so that it will cook all the way through when you fry it. Once the chicken is ready, scramble an egg in a bowl, and pour out some bread crumbs into another bowl. One at a time, repeat the following process for every peice of chicken. First, pat the chicken dry with a paper towel. Then dip the chicken in the egg, then put it in the bowl with the bread crumbs, moving it around until it is fully coated. Once this is done for all of the chicken, heat a pan over high heat. By now the pasta water should be boiling, so put the pasta in and set a timer according to the directions on the box. When the pan is hot, coat the bottom with cooking oil (I used vegetable, but anything other than olive oil would work). When the oil is hot, add half of the chicken pieces to the oil. After a few minutes, check the bottoms of the chicken pieces to see if they are browned. Once they are golden brown on the bottom, flip them and cook the other side for a few minutes until it is golden brown on both sides. When it’s done, remove the chicken and put them on a few layered paper towels to allow them to drain. Add more oil to the pan if necessary, bring it back up to heat, then cook the remaining chicken the same way the first half was cooked. Once the pasta is finished, drain it and set it aside in a bowl. In the pasta pot, melt the butter and add the cream and garlic, chopped finely. Simmer this mixture for about 5 minutes. Then slowly mix in the cheese until it is all melted and incorporated. Simmer the sauce until it thickens. To check for thickness, coat the back of a spoon in the sauce. The sauce should not run off, and if you draw a line across the spoon with your finger, the line should hold its shape (I think this technique has a fancy french name but I don’t remember it). When it’s done, add the pasta into the pot with the sauce, mix to combine, then add the chopped parsley and mix again. Serve with a piece of chicken atop a plate of pasta.

Again, if you have the time, I’d definitely recommend cooking this dish. It’s pretty epic.