Chicken and Egg Noodles with Wine Sauce all recipe

Chicken and Egg Noodles with Wine Sauce

Why this recipe works: This quick but company worthy dinner comes together quickly in a single skillet. First, we cut the chicken into narrow strips, cook it in butter and remove it from the skillet, leaving its fond behind. We then add white wine to the skillet to deglaze it, which makes scraping the fond from the bottom of the pan easy. Once the browned bits are dislodged, we simmer them in the liquid we use to cook the noodles, thereby distributing the fond’s flavor throughout the dish. Shallots and tarragon make an elegant accompaniment to the mild taste of chicken breast, while a few tablespoons of cream add a sweet dairy richness to the dish. We use plain egg noodles, rather than a more exotic variety of pasta, in this dish because their wide shape and fluffy texture lend themselves to quick cooking in shallow liquid. The last thing we wanted to do was bring out a pot just to boil the noodles.

Chicken and Egg Noodles with tarragon wine sauce

Ingredients: serve 4

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 1 ¼ pounds), cut crosswise into ¼ inch strips

   salt and pepper

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 shallots, peeled and sliced into thin rounds

½ cup white wine

4 cup white wine

8 ounce egg noodles

3 tablespoons heavy cream

2 tablespoons minced fresh tarragon

Procedures:

1. Pat chicken dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. Melt butter in large skillet over medium high heat. Melt butter in large skillet over medium high heat. Cook chicken until no longer pink, about 3 minutes. Transfer chicken to plate and tent with foil.
2. Add shallots to empty skillet and cook until softened, about 2 minutes. Stir in wine and cook, scraping up any browned bits of fond, until pan is nearly dry, about 3 minutes. Stir in broth and noodles and cook, stirring occasionally, until noodles are tender and liquid has been absorbed, 8 to 10 minutes.
3. Stir in cream, tarragon, and chicken, along with any accumulated chicken juices, and cook until heated through, about 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper. Sever.

Kitchen know how Shallots vs. Onions

Although they’re commonly substituted for one another, shallots and onions are not the same. Shallots have a unique flavor that is quite a bit milder and more delicate than that of onions, and, of course, they are also much smaller in size than most onions. When shallots and onions are cooked, the differences between them show up even more. In a quick cooking pan sauce for steak, for example, a shallot’s mild flavor will meld much more smoothly with that of the other ingredients. A finely minced shallot’s will also melt into the sauce until it’s all but indiscernible. No matter how finely you mince an onion, it’s not going to disappear into an otherwise silky sauce. An onion also needs much more cooking time before its flavor will mellow. In addition, a raw shallot will add gently heat to a vinaigrette or salsa, with a minimum of crunch. Use a raw onion in the same recipe and the pungent onion crunch may seem out of place.