Chicken, pancetta and mushroom pasta, all green salad and roasted garlic bread.

My Uncle and Aunt came for dinner last night. I say Uncle and Aunt yet they are no blood relation whatsoever, though they are basically second parents to me as they were around all my childhood. I consider them family without a doubt. Anyway, family definitions aside, I wanted to make something that could be prepared in advance so that I wasn't busy in the kitchen when I could be visiting. I also didn't want to use the oven too much because we have an eat in kitchen and we would die of overheating if that were the case! Our place is small enough as it is, never mind 2 extra people, and a hot kitchen! 

I decided I was going to make pasta, salad and garlic bread. I made my sauce earlier on; chicken, pancetta and mushrooms. I also made the salad, though I didn't toss it and left the leaves on the top so they didn't go soggy. And even the garlic bread was made in advance and just warmed through in the oven quickly before we ate. All I really had to do was boil pasta and dress the salad, perfect!

So, the sauce. I started by finely chopping an onion and sauteeing it in olive oil. To this I added some crushed garlic, about 2tbsp. I then added a tbsp of brown sugar and the same or maybe half more, of balsamic vinegar. The idea being that it would reduce down nicely and get some good flavours going. To this I added half a can of crushed tomatoes or tomato sauce, I would say somewhere between 1 and 2 cups of it. I added half initially and then kept adding more as I needed it. I added about 1 tbsp of dried basil, fresh would have been better. I did have fresh parsley so I put in about 1/4 cup finely chopped parsley. And some salt and pepper to taste. I let this slowly simmer away and thicken. And that was when I would add more tomatoes as needed. I had a tiny bit of cream left so I tossed that in, probably only 2 or 3 tbsps. Once the sauce was thick and tasty I turned it off. The sauce is not a bright red colour, it is a dark, deep red, because you put balsamic vinegar and brown sugar in at the start.

I removed the fat from about 6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs and cut them up into bite size chunks. I fried them in olive oil with salt and pepper until they were just done then I added them to the sauce. I then fried the pancetta in the same pan (using up the left over pancetta from the trout dish we had last week), there was about 1 cup of it, maybe just under. I also sliced up close to a pint of cremini mushrooms. I don't think amounts matter hugely here, I used what I had, and it worked, I am sure using different amounts won't hurt anyone. Once the pancetta was crisp and the mushrooms golden I added them to the sauce too and stirred it around. My pasta sauce was now ready. I covered it and left it until we were ready to eat. 

I decided that I wanted a purely green salad to go with the pasta, so I got out zucchini, mange tout/sugar snap peas, baby spinach leaves and lettuce. I washed, topped and tailed and quartered the zucchini lengthways. Then I removed the spongy centre part. This was a trick I learnt on the plane watching Jamie Oliver! I then cut it into diagonal slices and it comes out looking remarkably like penne. I put them in the bottom of a bowl. I then took out 2 handfuls of peas and rinsed them and removed the stringy part. You do this by cutting the stalk off almost entirely then dragging it along the back of the pea, the straightest part of it. A stringy piece will come away and you will be surprised how less 'chewy' your pea is because of that.

So, string removed peas were then cut into 3, on a diagonal cut too and added to the bowl. Then I took about 2 handfuls of baby spinach leaves and removed any large stalks and added them too. And lastly, some lettuce, I used half a head, but again, I don't believe quantities matter hugely. I grated a little parmesan on top of this and toasted about 1/3 cup of chopped walnuts which I added once they were cool. I covered this and put it in the fridge until we were ready to eat. 

The garlic bread I made on a long, thin baguette which I sliced up but not all the way through, so the pieces were still held together at the bottom. I used the left over roasted garlic here, butter, very finely chopped parsley and pepper. I cut the baguette into 2 initially as it wouldn't have fit in the oven whole. Each half, once it was cut and buttered then went onto a piece of foil. I pinched the ends of the foil up around the 2 ends of the bread and left the top open, almost like your bread is sitting in a canoe. I find completely covering it makes it soggy, so by leaving the top open you ensure crispy bread. I left my 'canoes' on the side until about 20minutes before we were ready to eat and then put them in a low oven just to warm through, melt butter and crisp it up.

Dinner was pretty much ready and no one was here yet! I quickly made a dressing and they arrived as I was stirring it together. I would say equal parts balsamic vinegar and olive oil, totalling somewhere between 1/3-1/2 cup. A tbsp of grainy mustard, 3 tsps of honey, several shakes of garlic powder, salt and pepper. Taste and adjust accordingly. 

When we wanted to eat all I had to do was boil some water, cook some pasta, warm up the sauce, toss the penne in the sauce, put it in a bowl, toss and dress the salad and get the garlic bread out the oven. Voila! The pasta was wonderfully el dente, with a richly tomatoey sauce that was cut with just a tiny bit of cream, and then moist chicken pieces, salty pancetta and mushrooms running through it. I love the garlic bread, so crispy, with a roasted garlic flavour instead of the powerful raw garlic and the green in it was so pretty. My favourite part was the salad though!

Soft zucchini, snappy peas, crunchy walnut pieces, different leaves and then the balsamic dressing, mmmm!! I normally don't keep salad but we put the left over bit in the fridge and today I drained the dressing off it and stuffed it in a sandwich with left over roast chicken on toasted Good Hearth bread, it was heaven!