This recipe is based on a dish made in small Italian Restaurant in Addicks on the west side of Houston in the 1980s. It led to Tom working a few Saturday afternoons there as a prep chef where the chef showed him how to cooked a dish for their early dinner before opening. Chicken Angelina was the first dish and the second was with clam, butter and garlic. That very short “job” led to owning many Italian cookbooks and gaining weight.
When he made it for the first time for Mary and Kelley it was a big hit. That eventually lead to Mary owning all his stuff. So, be careful to whom you serve it.
Ingredients
- Chicken breasts – 4 avg size to serve 4 people.
- Clarified butter – depends on the size of the skillet and if you use a little olive oil to reduce the chance of burning. At least one stick.
- Garlic – 3-4 avg size, chopped fine.
- Brocolli – a full head avg size. Cut off flowerettes into bite size pieces with only enough stem to hold them together.
- Mushrooms. – Sliced about the thickness of a quarter and about a 1.5 C
- Hot Pepper flakes.
- White wine for deglazing the pan and creating the wine-butter-garlic sauce
Preparation
This is a fast dish that I often take too long to assemble. The heat is high– just enough to not burn the clarified butter. Have french bread ready to serve hot with the plate of antipasto or a Ceasar salad before making the chicken.
- Boil the angel hair pasta and have it drained before starting below. To make it special boil it in chicken broth.
- Add the garlic and pepper flakes to the clarified butter with a little olive oil while it is getting hot.
- Lay in a chicken breast in an 8″ skillet and, using the tongs, poke it to cut the grain of the meat helping it to cook quickly. Flip it and poke the other side. Keep the heat up.
- Watch for the interior of the meat to turn from raw pink to white then pour a semi-dry white wine around the chicken and the wine will steam up. Turn the chicken over and add some fresh chopped garlic. Remove the chicken to a plate with pasta. When the wine steams it may catch on fire from the gas burner for 5-10 seconds. Then you will have made it like the chef in that little restaurant.
- Throw in the broccoli flowerettes and saute them until slightly wilted. Add the mushrooms and saute until they become slightly limber and–if you used white ones–lite brown. [If in this process any garlic becomes browned remove it. If that happens then you took too long to saute everything and likely the heat was too low. This must go quickly on fairly high heat.]
- Plate the chicken on one half of a platter and the pasta on the other half. Put the broccoli and mushrooms on the chicken. Pour the wine-butter-garlic pan drippings over the whole plate. Put the plate on the serving counter under heat lamps for the few minutes it takes to make the next plate.
- Repeat or use multiple saute pans and make all the dishes for that table at the same time. Serve immediately [after a Ceasar salad or antipasta] and with fresh soft crusted french bread to sop up the wine-butter-garlic sauce that will be left on the platter.
Note – The date of this post was set to be about the time Tom made that famous meal for Mary and Kelley. That was about 10 years after the time in the restaurant.
