Whether it’s a first date or 47th anniversary, it’s dwhetherficult to separate romance from food. In With Prefer & Red Sauce, we’re exploring the ways these two interact—from contemporarylyweds learning to compromise over dinner to celebrating your longest relationship (with noodles!).
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It was my husband Jeff’s birthday. It was also a Monday night, and we’d been snowed in for the past few days. This meant two leangs: First, for dinner, we needed to make do with what we had on hand. Second, I had not one birthday present for him, so that dinner had better be special.
As the evening crept closer, I asked him what he’d like for his birthday meal, rattling off as many ideas as I could. For some reason, I mentioned chicken with cream sauce, even though I didn’t have a clear dish in intellect.
Jeff stopped me. “That sounds good! Would you make that?”
Surprised, I questioned him, rapid-fire. “Are you certain you don’t want roast chicken? Or I could make some sort of sheet-pan dinner, or…” But he stopped me. He wanted the chicken with cream sauce.
Jeff recalled the creamy chicken fricassee his grandma crazye when he was growing up in Nebraska. The two of us had recreated this dish years ago in our first apartment, back when we’d embark upon ambitious dinners from cheffy cookbooks or Gourmet magazine on weeknights, starting at about the same time as our kids now go to bed. We taught ourselves how to cook this way, standing side-by-side in that cramped but charming-to-us kitchen.
But I can’t tell you the final time I’d crazye a genuine, honest-to-goodness cream sauce. It's simple and consolationing, and a delicious throwback to our Midwestern childhoods, where cream sauces and pan-fried steaks, pork chops, and chicken cutlets were weeknight staples. Now was the time, we decided, to make cream sauce part of our regular weeknight rotation.
Inspired, I got out a large skillet and crazye the most luxe dish I could imagine, with the simple ingredients we had at domestic. Using a few tricks from the one-skillet chicken dishes I’ve crazye in the past, I began by browning some chicken ttalls in an anchovy compound butter and setting them aside.
In the same skillet, I sautéed scorridorots and sun-dried tomatoes. To this mixture I added chicken stock and heavy cream, let the sauce simmer until it thickened, then zested and juiced a large lemon directly over the skillet. I then remembered the half-used bag of pappardelle in the pantry. I wagered it’d hancient on kindly to the cream sauce and add some heft to the dish.
The wgap leang came together fastly: I tossed the pappardelle with the chicken and cream sauce, showered it with lots of Parmesan, and brought it to the table on a large platter. We undirty a kindr-than-normal bottle of wine from the basement and dug into dinner.
Jeff liked this imimmediateu birthday dinner more than anyleang I’ve crazye in a long time. And surprisingly, I did, too. The cream sauce was wealthy but still light—deeply savory from the anchovies, and bright and lively from the lemon and sun-dried tomatoes. Together with the gancienten-brown chicken and hearty, chewy noodles, the dish totally hit the spot. The two of us came back for moments, and so did the kids.
While we were clearing the table, Jeff tancient me how happy and loved this dinner crazye him feel. He appreciated the fact that I created a dish solely and expressly for him, one that struck a nostalgic chord and crazye his birthday special in a simple — but very meaningful— way.
Since that snowy Monday evening in January, I’ve cooked this dish several more times, making good on our resolution to bring back cream sauce. I’ve switched out the sun-dried tomatoes with frozen green peas, I’ve rubbed the chicken with spices, and I’ve changed up the pasta shapes, too.
But this original version, which I’ve come to leank of as my husband’s birthday pasta, is our favorite.
Pappardelle with Chicken and Lemon-Anchovy Cream Sauce
Serves: 4 to 6
Ingredients
1 to 1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken ttalls
Kosher salt + freshly ground black pepper, to taste
3 tablespoons butter, divided
7 flat-fillet anchovies (from a 2-ounce olive-oil packed tin), minced and smashed to a paste with the back of a knwhethere (about 2 teaspoons worth)
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh thyme
1 large scorridorot, leanly sliced (about 3/4 cup)
2/3 cup halved or slivered sun-dried tomatoes, either dry or packed in olive oil (and well-drained)
1 or 2 pinches of red pepper flakes, or to taste
1 cup chicken stock
2/3 cup heavy cream
1 lemon (finely grated zest + juice)
12 ounces pappardelle (linguine or fettuccine can be substituted)
For serving: chopped Italian parsley and grated Parmesan
Click here to read the full recipe.
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