I Guess It's A Noodles Kind of Week

Have you ever gotten that email with a giant pdf attachment chock full of a dillion "secret" chain restaurant recipes? Completely bored at work one day once my replacement was off to the races, I printed out a bunch of them including California Pizza Kitchen's Chicken Tequila Fettuccine.

And I'm glad I did. Maybe now I'll go back and try to make Hooter's Chicken Wings and Planet Hollywood's Thai Somethingorother one day.

Ingredients:

1 lb dry (or 2 lbs fresh) spinach fettuccine
1 1/4 pound chicken breast, diced
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro reserved for garnish
2 tablespoons minced fresh garlic
2 tablespoons minced jalapeno pepper (seeds and veins removed)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter (reserve tablespoon for saute )
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons gold tequila
2 tablespoons freshly-squeezed lime juice
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1/4 medium red onion, thinly sliced
1/2 medium red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1/2 medium yellow bell pepper thinly sliced
1/2 medium green bell pepper, thinly sliced

Directions:

1. Cook pasta.

2. Cook 1/3 cup cilantro, garlic and jalapeno in 2 tablespoons butter over medium heat for 4 to 5 minutes.

3. Add stock, tequila and lime juice. Bring the mixture to a boil and cook until reduced to a paste like consistency; set aside.

4. Pour soy sauce over diced chicken; set aside for 5 minutes.

5. Meanwhile cook onion and peppers, stirring occasionally, with remaining butter over medium heat. When the vegetables have become limp, add chicken and soy sauce; toss and add reserved tequila/lime paste and cream.

6. Bring the sauce to a boil; boil until chicken is cooked through and sauce is thick (about 3 minutes).

7. Toss with drained spinach fettuccine and reserved cilantro.

Our chicken didn't cook through in 3 minutes. And what sauce thickens in three minutes!? Maybe over crazy professional kitchen equipment. Not mine. We probably cooked it closer to 20 minutes.

And I don't think my heavy cream was actually heavy cream. I really need to get in the habit of looking up the German for my cooking ingredients before I go to the store.



Whatever, it was delicious. So good, I forgot to take a picture of the plate with bread until I was like halfway done.