Improvisation: Raw Milk Cheddar Pasta With Fresh Lemon Pepper Chicken

So dinner tonight was interesting. We didn't feel like getting take out or going to the supermarket to plan a meal. It's way too cold outside. Skimming through Tyler Florence's Eat This Book, I found nothing that would work with what we have in the fridge or the pantry.

That meant one thing: I had to improvise. But I'm used to that! So what do we got? Half a block of raw milk cheddar, chicken breast cutlets, a variety of vegetables, and lots of leftovers. There's always garlic, ginger, cilantro, scallions, and onions on hand, so that helps. We had leftovers last night, so I figured I'd go nuts with the cheddar, the chicken and some other random stuff.

The meal I formulated in my head was something like a chicken alfredo- a creamy cheese sauce with pasta and some sort of sliced chicken on top. I've never made a cheese sauce before and lazy me, I didn't feel like going through recipes online or in our library to find one, so here goes...



I marinated the chicken cutlets with some salt, olive oil, a LOT of chopped garlic (practically a whole head), fresh squeezed lemon, and a lot of coarse crushed pepper. Essentially a lemon pepper marinade.



I heated a large pan on high heat with some olive oil, added the cutlets and seared both sides. Keeping the heat on, I put the cutlets aside on a plate and deglazed the pan with an American viognier that I'd been meaning to use for the past two weeks. I let that reduce for about five minutes, added some flour to thicken the sauce, and then added pieces of the raw milk cheddar. I also added roughly a cup of 2% milk (what we had in the fridge), and let it simmer and reduce some more.


Once I thought it tasted about right, I added the cooked fettucine I'd been preparing on the side, and topped that with some chopped red pepper and chopped parsley.



I was also preparing an easy side- a brothy soup. I just took a carton of low sodium chicken stock, added roughly the same amount of water, added some thinly sliced onion, kale, and sliced broccoli stems. To serve, I garnished it with some thinly sliced radishes.



Voila! The sauce didn't turn out to be as creamy as I was expecting, but it was still tasty. The chicken was also a little overdone. Oops! But all in all, it was very good. The raw milk cheddar combined with the viognier gave it a really bold flavor that I haven't ever experienced in a cheese sauce. And the lemon pepper flavor on the chicken wasn't too lemony, nor too peppery- just right. Pardon the glass, I didn't have proper wine glasses on hand.



The wine was absolutely amazing. I really have to credit my friend Phi with telling me about viogniers. I don't know too much about wine, but I think that going with this 2004 Maryhill Viognier was a great choice. The flavor wasn't so strong on the alcohol, a little fruity (pears?), and simply enjoyable. I wish I hadn't added so much to the sauce because I found myself wanting more when I finished the bottle. Gotta get me some more of that!