Resident Recipe - Italian Chicken, Tomato & Chilli Butter Sauce

If like me you are a fan of Italian food then you are going to love this dish. Not too many ingredients, it’s quick and easy to make and relatively cheap; the most expensive ingredient being the chicken.  It’s a perfect recipe for this time of year and looks great so will impress your flat mates! Give it a whirl and let us know what you think.

I served this dish on a bed of spaghetti and also a bed of courgetti spaghetti, as the other half is watching his carbs!  With this dish you can leave out the chilli if you don’t like a kick or add more if you like a bigger kick!  

Ingredients

• 2 chicken breasts
• Handful of fresh basil, cut into ribbons
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 red chilli, finely chopped
• 6 plum tomatoes, roughly chopped
• 55g of salted butter
• Salt and pepper

Method

Place the chicken breasts between two sheets of cling film and give them a good bashing with a rolling pin or the base of a heavy pan to flatten them so that they cook quicker.  

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan, season the chicken breasts with the salt and pepper and fry in the hot oil for around 15 minutes or until cooked through. You want each side to be golden brown.  Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside.

Remove the pan from the heat and allow the oil to cool slightly, otherwise if the oil is too hot when you add the tomatoes they will spit all over the place!

Place the pan back onto a lowish heat, add the chilli and garlic and fry for a few minutes before adding the chopped tomatoes.  

Increase the heat slightly, season with salt and pepper and give everything a good stir.  You want to get the tomatoes bubbling as we need to reduce them down somewhat in order to get a chunky sauce. This should take around 10 to 15 minutes.  

Once the sauce has thickened add the butter, return the chicken breasts to the pan and add the chopped basil and stir through, cooking for another couple of minutes.

Mark’s Top Tips

When cooking pasta, don’t add oil to the pan of water. All it does it stop your pasta sauce sticking to the pasta. Instead, make sure you add plenty of salt to the water.

Once the pasta is put into the boiling water make sure you stir it within the first couple of minutes to prevent it from sticking together.  

Once the pasta is ready to serve, reserve some of the pasta water and stir it through your pasta sauce. This will help thicken the sauce if necessary. 

Sarah’s Attempt

And for the finished dish…..

Mark’s verdict

I’m really impressed Sarah, it looks fantastic and you can tell just from looking at it that the chicken is moist. One of your best so far so I give this a 9/10 and next time you can cook it for me….