Friday, 29 February 2008

Phil Smith's Pesto Chicken

The award-winning hairdresser reveals his favourite pasta dish

Phil adores this corn-fed, pan-fried chicken with homemade pesto tagliatelle and shavings of Parmesan and roasted vine tomatoes.

Ingredients

Pasta
500g/1lb 2oz strong flour
3 large free-range eggs
8 yokes from free-range eggs

Pesto
¼ clove of garlic
3 large handfuls of fresh basil
Handful of grated Parmesan
Good handful of lightly roasted pine nuts
Extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Squeeze of fresh lemon juice

Chicken
Extra virgin olive oil
2 corn-fed chicken breasts
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
3-4 vine tomatoes

Method

1 Make a mound with the flour on your kitchen work surface and scoop out a hole in the middle. Pour the eggs and egg yokes into the hole and work into the flour until you have a smooth dough. Knead the dough for 10-15 mins until it's smooth and flexible. Roll the dough out and feed through a pasta machine. Place the pasta in salted boiling water. As it's fresh, it will cook in 3-5 mins.

2 Once the pasta is cooked, place it back in the pot and stir in the pesto. To make the pesto, place all the ingredients in a pestle and mortar and grind into a paste.

3 Heat a large non-stick frying pan. Add a little oil and gently fry the chicken breasts until cooked right through. Remove the chicken and place the vine tomatoes in the pan. Gently cook the tomatoes until soft and tender.

4 Put the homemade pesto tagliatelle on a plate and position the chicken breast on top. Place the vine tomatoes at the side the chicken and sprinkle a generous handful of parmesan over the dish.

Phil's recipe is from the Cutting Edge Cook Book in aid of the charity Hair & Beauty Benevolent (HABB).
For more info, visit www.habb.org.