Chicken Scampi

The very few times I've been to Olive Garden (twice with my husband, three times with my best friend) I've ordered their chicken scampi. (Okay, all but once. And that once I got a seasonal pasta dish that was...interesting. And okay. But I wouldn't get it again. [And it wasn't good enough to remember the name of.])

A few weeks ago, Andrew and I had the house to ourselves (no guests, no extended family) and I was wondering what on earth to make for dinner. We just didn't seem to have anything in the house to make something good. But then I started thinking, hmmm... peppers... garlic... rice noodles... chicken... why not try my hand at chicken scampi?

Make sure you very thinly slice the peppers.

I looked online at half a dozen recipes to get a basic idea and see what variations were out there, and then picked and chose and hobbled ingredients together by taste. What came out... absolutely scrumptious. I'll never buy scampi from Olive Garden again.

(Note: I made scampi for dinner tonight and thought to get photos of the process. We were so eager for dinner to start, though, that I forgot to take pictures of the end result before it was decimated at the table. I also only had white wine and it wasn't nearly as good as with the red shiraz.)

Here's the rough recipe:

Garlic and spices simmering in the butter

-1 cup butter
-4 to 6 heaping tablespoons of fresh, minced garlic (sometimes I've used pre-minced, sometimes I've done a full bulb of fresh garlic...or two)
-2 heaping TBsp chicken bouillon or the equivalent
-3/4 cup red wine (my favourite has been a nice shiraz)
-2.5 cups white sauce (butter, flour or cornstarch, and milk)
-1 TBsp sambal oelek or crushed red peppers
-black pepper to taste
-fresh sweet peppers, thinly sliced
-cooked chicken (I roasted a whole chicken in the oven beforehand and used two cups of the shredded meat to mix in with the scampi sauce)
-angel hair noodles

Keeping the peppers and onions separate

Melt the butter in a saucepan or large wok. Add garlic, pepper, bouillon, and wine, simmering for 30 minutes. Stir it occasionally. In the meantime, whip up a white sauce. Combine the simmered butter and the white sauce after the 30 minutes are up. Put a pot of water on to boil for the noodles (make enough for four servings) and get that going.

Andrew's peppers and onions cooking together

In a separate pan, simmer peppers (and onions, if you like-- they make me sick but Andrew and the rest of my family love them, so I always do a separate dish for myself with none) in butter or olive oil. Once the peppers are almost tender, add the shredded chicken and stir.  Combine it with the sauce mixture and spread it over the noodles once they are finished cooking and drained. Serve dinner hot with your choice of wine.

The almost-finished sauce

Bryndzové Halušky

One of Andrew and my favourite dishes to eat from Slovakia is bryndzové halušky. I posted a recipe to halušky a paprikaš earlier, and the recipe for the halušky (a cross between a noodle and dumpling) is the same for both foods. Once you make the halušky, if you have access to bryndza (a sheep's cheese) you simply melt it along with bacon and bacon grease into the halušky. However, if you live anywhere near me, you don't, so I use a mixture of butter, feta cheese, and sour cream. The end result is a passable imitation of bryndza. I stir it into the halušky and add plenty of crumbled bacon as well as a fair amount of bacon grease. Stir it all together and serve as a meal of its own. It's quite heavy and fills you up faster than you expect, but is it ever delicious!

Warning: this is a very different taste and texture than most western palates are used to. 

Dobrú chut'!