Chicken Scampi with Sun-dried Tomatoes

I decided to pop in the kitchen to whip up some Italian for dinner. Granted this week have been quite painful thus far, I figure cooking a great therapy... that and to repair some damaged pride because my baked chicken failed miserably for the Boyfriend last night.

I'm sorry, the quality is down right awful, but I was only using the Boyfriend's iphone. My kodak doesn't seem to take photos in dim lights too well and the flash kills everything!

Anyhow, the recipe I decided to adopt was from allrecipes.com, although I did modify it to suit myself better.

Ingredients

Scampi Sauce:

• 2 tbsp unsalted butter
• 2 tbsp olive oil, changed from 1/4 cup.
• 1/2 Cup white wine (to be tested)
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2tsp salt, less if Parmesan cheese is used as topping
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 5 whole sun-dried tomatoes, diced

Chicken and Pasta:

• 2 boneless chicken breast halves, 1-in cubed 
• Onion Powder, to your liking
• Black grounded pepper, to your liking
• Pasta
• Parmesan Cheese, grated

Directions

1. In a skillet heat the butter or margarine and oil over low-medium heat until the butter melts. Add the parsley, basil, oregano, garlic and salt and mix together in the skillet. Stir in lemon juice.  
2. Then add the chicken and sauté until white. Lower the heat, add the wine and simmer for about 10 to 15 minutes or until chicken is cooked through and the juices run clear. Typically, until i think the chicken's done and the alcohol is out.
3. Dice the sun-dried tomatoes and mix into the chicken scampi sauce.
4. Add angel hair pasta or spaghetti and mix well. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese. 

The results,

The right is the Boyfriend's dish. He doesn't like sun-dried tomatoes... his lost, my gain. 

Overall, I added too much olive oil, so it felt a bit greasy. That's partly why I had changed the recipe from 1/4 Cup to 2 tbsp and added 1/2 Cup of white wine to make up for the lost of liquid. Although I didn't measure it, but I know it was quite close to a quarter of a cup... trust me, I'm a physicist, we do rough estimates every day.

Though, to balance the feel of greasiness, I added an extra drizzle of lemon juice for the tangy notes. it worked out quite well as I didn't feel overwhelm by the greasiness after.

What I really loved about this recipe is the garlic that were just perfect! I have a gas stove so I kept the heat pretty low throughout the process. The chicken were tender and juice, and the scampi sauce had the citrus notes from the lemon. The garlic didn't get browned or burnt so it was perfectly succulent and had such an incredible taste. Whenever I had a small bit of it, it was just heavenly... I know, crazy. I love garlic.

This may become on of my all time favorite Italian recipe. I love lemon and garlic as a combination.  I'll try the recipe again with the wine and what not. A follow will be due in the future. In the mean time, if you wanna try it and tell me, I'd be more than happy to read as well!

Enjoy!

Gracie