Baked Pasta, Chicken and Artichoke Hearts in a Lemon Cream Sauce

For this recipe, I’m combining chicken with two of my favorite ingredients – lemons and artichoke hearts – to make a tasty and filling baked pasta casserole, perfect for the spring season. You’ll need a little bit of time to prepare this dish, as it is a multi-step recipe. For the first step, we’ll sauté the artichokes and chicken in a lemon, wine and butter sauce. For the second step, we’ll prepare Lidia Bastianich’s lemon cream sauce recipe. We’ll then combine everything and bake it for 30 minutes. This is a great dish to serve to your family and friends as a beautiful weekend afternoon meal.

Step 1: Sautéing the Chicken and Artichokes

Ingredients:
1/2 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1″ to 2″ pieces
2 tbspn olive oil
2 tbspn butter
1 shallot, minced
zest plus juice of one lemon
1/4 cup white wine
6 oz jar artichoke hearts, roughly chopped

Directions:
Heat oil and butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When butter melts, add chicken. Sauté until chicken is browned and cooked. Remove chicken, set aside. Add shallots, cook briefly until shallots start to soften. Add wine to deglaze pan. When the liquid starts to reduce, add lemon zest and juice, stir well. Add artichoke hearts and chicken, stir well. Simmer for 10 minutes, or until liquid reduces by half. Remove from heat, set aside.

Step 2: Preparing the Lemon Cream Sauce

Recipe courtesy of Lidia Bastianich
Ingredients:
2 teaspoons kosher salt
3 tablespoons butter
zest plus juice of 2 lemons
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup heavy cream

Directions:
Drop the butter into the large skillet, and set it over medium heat. As the butter melts, scatter in the grated lemon zest; stir it around until sizzling. Pour in the white wine and lemon juice, add the salt, stir, and bring the liquids to a bubbling simmer. Cover the skillet, and let cook for a couple of minutes.

Uncover the pan, and slowly pour in the cream, whisking it steadily into the simmering wine and lemon juice. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquids reduce to a saucy consistency you like, 2 or 3 minutes more.

Note: as you are making the lemon cream sauce, you will also start to prepare a pot of boiling water to make 1 lb of pasta (zit, rigatoni or small shells will work well with this dish). As the sauce simmers, start to boil the pasta.

Step 3: Combining the Ingredients

When the pasta is done boiling, you will combine the pasta with the chicken and artichoke mixture (and its reduced liquid) in a 13″x9″ baking dish. Carefully pour the lemon cream sauce over the pasta mixture and stir it until the pasta, chicken and artichokes are all covered with the sauce. Loosely cover the pan with aluminum foil. Bake in a 350˚ over for 30 minutes. Remove from oven, stir, serve and enjoy.

Food Challenge Results: Pollo con Carciofi e Pomodori and Chicken Artichoke Picatta

So as we all know, artichokes (carciofi) were the winning ingredient for the “Mamma Meets The Cucina” Food Challenge. You voted and we heard ya loud and clear!!! So what you are about to read is the result of long hours of inventing and preparing the (hopefully) WINNING recipes for this challenge:) We both know we’ve got some hefty competition – but it’s all in good fun….for now.

Let’s start with Una Mamma Italiana’s original
Roasted Artichoke and Tomato Stuffed Chicken Breasts

…..or if you want to sound really Italian, Pollo con Carciofi e Pomodori! The roasted taste of the artichokes and the tomatoes is what makes this dish. Don’t skip that step…and the creamy sauce, though somehwat of an indulgence – is so worth it because it’s the perfect, rich finish to the chicken….I’d serve this with a green salad tossed with none other than – artichoke hearts!

Enjoy!!

ROASTED ARTICHOKE & TOMATO STUFFED CHICKEN BREASTS

INGREDIENTS:
4 Roma tomatoes, quartered
1 can artichoke hearts
e.v.o.o.
2 TSP Italian Seasoning
kosher salt
cracked black pepper
4 TBSP grated romano cheese
1 clove garlic
1/3 cup dry white wine
1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
2-3 LG chicken breasts

Place quartered tomatoes and artichoke hearts on a baking sheet. Drizzle generously with extra virgin olive oil and season with 1 tsp Italian Seasoning, kosher salt and black pepper (enough to coat). Roast in the oven (under the broiler) for about 5 minutes, or until the vegis get dark and crispy.

While these are cooking, make pockets a pocket in each of your chicken breasts. (NOTE: this is much different than butterflying the breasts. Simply cut a slit in the middle, leaving the back and sides of the breast intact. This creates a pocket for your stuffing to fill.

Roughly chop the roasted artichoke hearts and tomatoes. Stuff the pockets of the breasts generously with HALF of the chopped veggie mixture. Season the outside of the breasts with salt and pepper.

Saute up some of that garlic in the e.v.o.o. As soon as they start to get golden, add the chicken and brown on each side, flipping them with EXTRA CARE so as to keep the filling inside:) Once browned, remove from the pan and place the breasts in a warm oven (350 degrees for 10 minutes or so) to finish cooking.

In the meantime, add the remaining roasted artichokes & tomatoes mixture to the pan. Saute briefly, then deglaze the pan with the white wine. Cook on med-high until reduced by about half (and the alcohol cooks out) and then add the heavy cream. Stir in some of the grated cheese and the rest of the Italian seasoning. Simmer until thickened, stirring occasionally. Add the chicken back into the sauce to heat everything through and meld all the flavors.

Then, plate and serve!

And now, here’s Cucina Domenico’s
Chicken Artichoke Picatta

This is a traditional Italian dish with the addition of artichoke hearts, which makes for great flavor and texture. Although this recipe calls for chicken cutlets, it would also work well with veal cutlets, flounder or tilapia.

Two quick, but important notes about this dish:

1. Piccata is fairly quick and easy to make. As long as you stay on top of your timing, you’ll end up with a perfect dish.

2. Whenever you are using wine to cook with (you will be using white wine for this dish), never use anything less in quality than you would drink or serve to guests. Better tasting ingredients make for better tasting dishes!

CHICKEN ARTICHOKE PICCATA

INGREDIENTS:
2 large or 4 small thin cut chicken cutlets
1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon garlic powder
juice plus zest of 1 lemon
salt and pepper
4 tblspn olive oil
2 tblspn butter
1/3 cup white wine
1/3 cup chicken broth
2 tablespoon capers
1 small jar artichoke hearts

Mix together the flour, garlic powder, dash of salt and pepper, and lemon zest, dredge cutlets in flour mix

In a large pan heat 4 tablespoons olive oil, add 2 tablespoons butter.

Add cutlets, cook 3 minutes each side.

Add 1/3 cup white wine, 1/3 cup chicken broth and juice from lemon, lower heat, let simmer for 5 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons capers and 1 small jar artichoke hearts. Let simmer for 1-2 minutes.

Serve over rice.

NOW it’s time to vote again! Use the poll on each blog’s sidebar or the Cucina Domenico Facebook Group Page to cast your vote for which recipe YOU think should be the winner!
Happy voting!

NEW – And the winner is….

It looks like Carciofi will be the battling ingredient for the first “Mamma meets the Cucina” food challenge! So stay tuned as each blogger posts their homemade original recipe containing artichokes! Then you can vote AGAIN on which one you think looks like a winner!

A big GRAZIE to every one who voted!

Stuffed Artichokes

This past weekend we hosted a nice family dinner for my mom’s birthday. I decided to serve a special dish that my mom always enjoyed, stuffed artichokes. My grandmother would make them and send them over to my house a few times a year when I was younger. It has to be at least 25 years since we’ve had them last, so I knew that they would make for a special birthday dish. I searched out a bunch of recipes and found a great one on italianchef.com. The recipe was simple enough to follow, and contained the perfect combination of flavors. What made this dish even more special was that it was almost the exact same recipe that my great grandmother (my mom’s grandmother) would use. It was the perfect birthday treat.

There are many more great, authentic recipes at italianchef.com, I highly recommend you check it out! I also placed a link under the Recommendation section. Special thanks to Chef Paolo Torre for allowing me to share his recipe.

STUFFED ARTICHOKES
(click here for link to original post)

Serves 4

1 cup bread crumbs
½ cup grated Pecorino-Romano Cheese
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
salt & freshly ground pepper to taste
6 tablespoons olive oil
4 artichokes
2 cloves of garlic, sliced

1. Combine bread crumbs, Pecorino-Romano Cheese, parsley, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a medium bowl. Mix together well.

2. Cut stems off artichokes, flush with bottom. Cut pointy leaves off the top of the artichokes. Spread leaves of each artichoke out and push stuffing in between them. (I also scooped out and discarded the hard, purple leaves in the center of the artichoke prior to stuffing).

3. In a pot just large enough to fit the artichokes, add the sliced garlic cloves, 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and the artichokes. Drizzle the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil over the top of the artichokes.

4. Turn heat on to medium and cook until sizzling about 1-2 minutes.  Add water to reach half way up the sides of the artichokes.

5. Cover and cook until the artichokes are tender and a leaf is easily pulled out, about 45 minutes.  If liquid is evaporating too quickly add a little more water.

6. Transfer to a serving platter, drizzle a little of the liquid from the pot over the artichokes and serve.