MAISON DE KENNEDY

Creamy White Wine & Chicken Pasta

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ (5/5) Tested by Cass — 1 hr 15 min · Serves 6

Straight from the owner of the Italian café where this lived on the menu for years. Butter, chopped chicken, garlic and parsley, a glass of white wine for the pan (and one for you), cream, parmesan, tossed through pasta with a splash of pasta water. That's the whole recipe — scaled to feed 6, upgraded from thigh to brine-plumped breast, with the pan sequencing dialled in so it lands the way it did at the café.

Ingredients

Chicken & Brine

• 700 g Chicken Breast — diced into 2 cm pieces (see notes)
• 1 L Cold Water
• 3 tbsp Fine Salt (~45 g)
• 2 tbsp Caster Sugar
• 2 Bay Leaves — optional
• 1 tsp Black Peppercorns — optional

Sauce & Pasta

• 600 g Dry Pasta — fettuccine, tagliatelle or penne
• 60 g Butter
• 1 tbsp Olive Oil — stops the butter burning
• 6 cloves Garlic — finely chopped
• Large handful Flat-Leaf Parsley — chopped, ~½ cup, keep some for garnish
• 250 ml Dry White Wine — Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio or Pinot Gris
• 500 ml Heavy Cream
• 100 g Parmesan — freshly grated, plus more for serving
• Salt & Freshly Cracked Black Pepper
• 1 cup Reserved Pasta Cooking Water
• Extra glass of Wine — for you. Chef's rule.

Method

1. Make the brine: Dissolve salt and sugar in the water, stirring until fully clear. Warm 100 ml first if it helps, then top up with cold — the brine must be cold before the chicken goes in.
2. Brine 45 minutes: Add bay and peppercorns if using. Submerge the chicken fully, refrigerate 45 min to 1 hour. No longer than 90 min or the texture turns spongy.
3. Dry it properly: Drain, rinse briefly, pat very dry with paper towels. Dry surface = proper sear, no steam.
4. Water on: Large pot of well-salted water to a rolling boil — should taste like the sea. Have it ready before you start; the timing is tight.
5. Sear the chicken: Wide deep pan over medium-high with butter and olive oil. Once the foam subsides, add chicken in a single layer — two batches if needed. Don't stir for 90 seconds; let it catch colour.
6. Cook through: Toss and cook 6–8 minutes until golden at the edges and just cooked. The café original says 10, but with brined breast diced small, 6–8 is plenty.
7. Pasta in: Drop the pasta now, timer for 1 minute less than the packet.
8. Garlic and parsley: Pan to medium. Garlic plus two-thirds of the parsley, 60 seconds until fragrant — don't brown the garlic. Salt and cracked pepper.
9. Deglaze: Pour in the wine. It'll bubble hard. Scrape the golden bits off the bottom. Reduce 1–2 minutes until the raw alcohol smell is gone and the liquid has almost evaporated.
10. Cream: Pour in, bring to a bubble, drop to a strong simmer. 3–5 minutes, stirring, until it coats the back of a spoon — thick enough to hold a line when you drag a finger through, but still pourable.
11. Parmesan off heat: Stir it in. Taste and adjust salt and pepper. Rich, silky, glossy.
12. Save the water: Before draining, scoop out 1 cup of the starchy cooking water. Do not skip this.
13. Toss: Drain (don't rinse) and tip straight into the pan. Toss over medium heat, adding pasta water a splash at a time (~½ cup) until glossy and unified. Too thick, more water. Too loose, keep tossing over heat 30 seconds.
14. Serve: Remaining parsley, warm bowls, extra parmesan, cracked pepper, and another glass of that wine.

Notes

• Great if you're feeling like something creamy but lighter in flavour than the sundried tomato version.
• 700 g is the right ratio. 900 g runs a touch chickeny and the sauce and pasta lose the spotlight. 700 g (~117 g per person) is closer to authentic Italian pasta-as-hero portioning. Brine quantities stay the same either way.
• Why brine the breast. Leaner than thigh, so it dries out fast when diced and pan-cooked. A 45-minute wet brine pulls salt and water into the meat so it stays plump through the sear. It won't taste salty, it'll taste seasoned.
• Wine choice. Something you'd happily drink — not "cooking wine", which is salted and rubbish. Dry, crisp, unoaked: Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio, Pinot Gris. Avoid heavily oaked Chardonnay, the buttery vanilla note fights the cream. Marlborough Sav Blanc is perfect.
• The pasta water rule. Cream sauces tighten as they cool. Starchy pasta water emulsifies with the fat, thins without diluting, and helps the sauce grip. Add slowly at the end and keep tossing. This is what separates café pasta from home pasta.
• Fridge: sauce keeps 3 days covered. Reheat gently with a splash of milk or water, low heat, don't boil.
• From the café owner: "We used to toss chicken in flour but only cos we were cooking large quantities. It's better without." Trust her — the flour dredge is a bulk-service compromise. At home, a clean sear on brined chicken beats floured every time.

Freeze & Reheat — Sauce Only, No Pasta

• Freeze without the parmesan. Parmesan crystallises and goes gritty in the freezer. Stop just before it goes in, cool fully, freeze. Add fresh grated parmesan when you reheat.
• Cool completely first (fridge 1–2 hours). Hot into the freezer means big ice crystals and a wrecked emulsion.
• Portion it — ~350–400 ml per 2 servings, flat zip bags laid flat or lidded containers.
• Keeps 2 months. Safe at 3, but the flavour dulls. Label with date and version.
• Thaw slowly — overnight in the fridge, or the sealed bag in cool water for 30–60 min. Never microwave from frozen; you'll split it.
• Reheat gently in a wide pan over low heat, stirring constantly. If it looks split at first, keep going.
• Rescue a split sauce: whisk 1 tsp cornflour into 1 tbsp cold water and drizzle in while whisking hard, or add a splash of fresh cream and whisk vigorously off heat.

Variations

• Mushrooms — 250 g sliced brown mushrooms, cooked dry after the chicken comes out, before the garlic. Earthy, and stretches the dish.
• Bacon — 100 g diced streaky, rendered first, removed, added back at the end. Smoky salt note.
• Spinach — 100 g baby spinach folded in with the pasta. Wilts in seconds.
• Lemon — a squeeze and some zest right at the end lifts the richness. Very café-Italian.
• Vegetarian — skip the chicken, double the mushrooms, add 100 g peas at the end.

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