February 25th 2007
Sunday night foodblogging
Mr. Angst has this periodic craving for arrabiata, but not real arrabiata. See, real arrabiata is a tomato sauce, traditionally served with penne and chicken. But Mr. Angst first tasted “angry pasta” at a little place in Our Old Town, and their arrabiata was made with a white wine cream sauce, prociutto, and shrimp, with some diced tomatoes scattered in.
So I’ve tried a variety of arrabiata recipes over the years and never gotten it right–mostly because Mr. Angst doesn’t want real arrabiata. Tonight, we decided that I would try regular arrabiata again, since we didn’t have any white wine, or cream, or proscuitto, or tomatoes.
What I made was this, but modified. Basically, I diced several cloves of garlic, threw them in a saucepan with a little less than a quarter cup of olive oil and a heaping teaspoon of red pepper flakes. Then I poured in about two cups of red sauce I made a couple of days ago, not having tomato paste or whole peeled tomatoes on hand, either. I cooked the sauce in the oil and garlic, and discovered there was a little too much oil, which I promptly poured off into another skillet, for the chicken.
I pounded the chicken, dunked it in one beaten egg then in a cup of bread crumbs laced with salt and pepper, and browned the chicken on both sides in the peppery, tomatoey oil–to which I added a little more regular oil because there wasn’t enough. Four minutes for each side of the chicken later, I pulled it from the pan, sliced it, and threw it into the sauce. Ten minutes later I threw in about 8 oz of cooked egg noodles (you guessed it, no penne around).
I have to say, this was a pretty good recipe. Easy to make, super tasty, and plenty left over for tomorrow’s lunch. I highly recommend, especially because it’s super adaptable–I think you could do whatever you wanted with the base and it would be good.
