Fettuccine with Chicken, Bacon, and Mushrooms, what is not to like? I mean, BACON!
For Easter this year, I decided to roast a whole chicken with herbs de Provence and a lemon. It just felt like I wanted to have some sort of classic and traditional family dinner. Easter was a big holiday growing up with my family as we would drive down from the Bay Area to my grandmother’s house in Salinas. She always had chicken and all the fixings including had rolled pasta (I didn’t make the pasta for Easter, but I made up for it here!). This year I have been missing my family very much and decided to have my very own little feast. Of course, I had a whole chicken for just me and Pickles, my dog. I bound to have leftovers. I looked into my fridge to see what I had on hand and decided to make this amazing pasta with what I had in there, with the chicken being the star.
This pasta turned out so very decadent and delicious. The chunks of chicken with crumbled salty bacon and tender mushrooms are all things I love to eat. The sauce needed something rich and delicious, so I added cream, chicken broth, and vermouth to add some depth. And the fresh pasta, which is so very much better than dried in this recipe, made this pasta dish an incredible meal. And then the Parmesan cheese just all brings goodness to this party
If you have not made fresh pasta before, now is a great time to start. I have a great recipe on this blog. (Link to fresh Pasta dough HERE) When I make fresh pasta, I use this pasta roller attachment to my Kitchen aid. ( I get a tiny commission if you use the links from this blog to help fund it) I have used a hand roller like this one before, too, which works great. But if you don’t have access to a pasta roller, you can, by all means, hand roll the pasta dough out with a rolling pin. Cut it into strips with a knife and you have amazing fresh pasta. It will take a bit of muscle, but even my little frail (but amazing!) grandmother used to hand roll out her pasta. Her pasta that she called dumplings was one of my favorite things ever, I have her recipe, but I have never been able to duplicate what she does. Hopefully, someday I’ll have a bit of time to play with it and perfect it the way she made it. But that is for a different blog post.
I wrote out how to time out the process in making the pasta and the sauce at the same time to give you an idea of how you can make this whole thing in about an hour. You can, of course, extract out how to make it over a more extended period if you like. But I was trying to help those new to making pasta. I encourage you to make fresh pasta, it is far superior in taste and texture than dried in a sauce like this. Making fresh pasta is a great skill to have. And if you have never made lasagne with fresh pasta, you are missing out.
Let me know in the comments below if you make this and what you might have done differently. I would love to hear from you and even give you advice on pasta making if you need it.
- 1 lb fresh pasta dough recipe see fresh pasta dough on whattomunch.com
- 5 slices of bacon
- 2 cups cooked chicken chopped
- 2 tablespoons bacon fat or butter
- 8 oz mushrooms sliced about 1 ½ cups
- ½ cup dry vermouth dry white wine, or more chicken broth
- ½ cup chicken broth
- 1 tablespoon flour
- 1 cup cream
- Pepper to taste
- ½ cup grated parmesan cheese
-
Make the pasta dough according to the recipe on whattomunch.com or your favorite recipe.
-
Let the dough rest for at least 30 minutes, covered, while you make the sauce.
-
Fry or bake the bacon until crisp. You can reserve some of the drippings to cook the mushrooms in or use butter. Set the bacon aside to drain on paper towels. And then crumble.
-
Heat a large skillet over medium heat.
-
At the same time, you can start a large pot of water to boil.
-
Sauté the mushrooms with bacon drippings until the mushrooms have released most of their moisture and have just begun to brown.
-
Sprinkle the flour over the cooked mushrooms and stir to combine.
-
Let the flour mixture cook for a minute or so. It is ok if the flour sticks to the bottom of the pan as it will unstick when you deglaze in the next step.
-
Add the vermouth all at once and stir to combine, scraping up the flour as necessary.
-
Stir in the chicken broth and the cooked chicken.
-
Turn the heat down to a high simmer and let it come to a boil, stirring occasionally. Let simmer for several minutes to thicken.
-
While the sauce heats up, start to roll out the pasta.
-
Divide the pasta dough in half for easier handling.
-
Starting with the biggest opening, usually a #1, roll the pasta dough several times, folding the dough against itself lengthwise each time. Ending with #4 as the final roller setting.
-
Cut the dough into desired lengths, usually about 12-14 inches. But divide it evenly, to use all of the dough.
-
Keep an eye on the sauce and turn the heat down if need be.
-
Send the cut pasta sheets through the fettuccine cutters, or you can cut them by hand if you desire.
-
The water should be boiling by now, salt the water heavily, and drop the pasta into the boiling water. Let cook for 5 minutes test after 4 minutes to see if it is tender yet firm.
-
While the pasta is cooking, stir the cream, bacon, and the parmesan cheese into the simmering sauce. Add a few grinds of pepper and taste to see if the seasoning is good. You probably won’t need any salt.
-
Before draining the pasta, scoop a ½ cup of the pasta water into the sauce and stir to combine.
-
Drain the pasta and add it to the sauce. Toss with the sauce to combine.
-
Serve with more parmesan cheese.
You may use dried pasta if you want just to skip the pasta directions, but it is worth the effort to make you own. If you don’t have a pasta roller, it is possible to hand roll the dough out, it will take some effort, but it is fun and rustic to do it that way, like my grandmother used to!
