Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo

20100828:
Today I made chicken fettuccine alfredo but also added plum and tomatoes.


Process:
I cut the tomato. Then I cut up a black plum (having removed the skin to keep and eat myself). Finally I diced two cloves of garlic and cut up the chicken.

I decided to use my cast iron skillet to see how it behaves. I added olive oil*, threw in the garlic, and threw in the chicken. Soon after, I threw in the tomatoes and plum together with the chicken, instead of first removing the chicken (as would be done when cooking thicker vegetables); I figured the tomatoes and plum would just work their way between the chicken and cook quickly (and they did). Then I added the alfredo sauce.

diced tomato (top left), sliced tomato (top right), black plum (bottom right), garlic (bottom left)
*Because cast iron skillets get seasoned with the oils used, olive oil is not ideal because it will give off its flavor when I use the pan in the future. In contrast, bacon oil would be ideal if the pan is generally used to cook eggs and meat.

Comments:
At first I cut the tomato in half and then I played around with cutting it. The picture shows two distinct groups.

I had bought a different brand of alfredo sauce than I normally get and, when I tried it, it had a weird flavor. I tried adding it to some old corn which I boiled in asparagus broth. That ended up tasting terrible so I discard it; experiment failed!

chicken (left), garlic cloves (top), knife
As such, the choice to add the alfredo sauce to the tomatoes was a hard one to make. However, I figured it would probably work out - unlike the corn and alfredo (I'm lucky I tested the corn and alfredo in a separate pot).

When making the pasta, I didn't add any oil - sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. Unfortunately, the noodles stuck together because I failed to occasionally stir the pasta. Even then, a little oil would have helped. In the end, I determined that it's just better to add oil than not add oil into pasta.

Overall, I'm getting used to the cooking process, but there's still room for experimentation - such as with ways of cutting different ingredients (like the tomato) and adding new ingredients (like the plum).

fettuccine
Result:
The dish had a good flavor and the chicken was good. The plum's flavor, however, wasn't explicit. The flavor might have been hanging around though.

The main issue with the dish was the sticking of the pasta - though not a huge deal.

There might have been a low sauce to pasta ratio, but there was enough flavor to go around that this wasn't a big issue either.

Though I cooked this dish without adding soy sauce, there was dipping sauce for dumplings which went well with this dish.

[20100829][20161018]

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