Gemelli Pasta with Prosciutto & Chicken
Gemelli Pasta with Prosciutto and Chicken makes an easy week night dinner. You can substitute penne pasta and add a mild green to the pasta, such as baby spinach. Our Tuscan Herb Infused Olive Oil is one of our most popular items – it is extremely versatile and pasta is a willing partner – but try it on roasted vegetables as well. We are very grateful for our customers and seek to encourage home cooked meals. Having traveled for much of my professional career, my focus for food has always been healthy and easy – remember I am not a trained chef but since cooking with quality olive oils and aged balsamic vinegars I gained at least the confidence to simply make things up. This was a Tuesday evening creation because the ingredients were in the house …. I admit that my intension was to include fresh baby spinach but on this batch pictured I simply forgot! Well … it happens and it makes me laugh to admit such things.
We hope you enjoy this and try the variation with the baby spinach too – and if you forget it, like I did – just laugh and enjoy what is in front of you. The equipment I used was a large oval Le Creuset enamel skillet (https://www.lecreuset.com/signature-oval-skillet) but a large cast iron or saute pan would be fine. This is just to give you size suggestion sand to see that I try to do most things with as few pans as possible.
Gemelli Pasta with Chicken and Procuitto
- Category: Entre'
Ingredients
- 1 pound dry gemelli pasta
- 3 tablespoons Cultivated Tree Tuscan Herb Infused Olive Oil
- 4 medium shallots, sliced
- 4 ounces diced prosciutto
- 1/2 cup dry white wine, optional
- 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs
- 1 teaspoon Seasonello - aromatic herbal salt (we stock this item) OR sea salt with pinch each rosemary, garlic, sage and pepper
- 1/4 cup fresh grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
- 1/4 cup chopped Italian Flatleaf parsley
- Salt and pepper to taste, and or salt for pasta water
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 with rack adjusted 1/3 from broiler. Allow a large enamel or cast iron skillet to heat with oven. Slice shallots while oven heats and start a 4 quart pot of salted water boiling for the gemelli pasta.
- When oven is preheated and pan is hot - remove from oven and add 2 tablespoons of Tuscan Herb Infused Olive Oil and shallots. Return to oven for 5 minutes. (You can do this on the stovetop, but I just continue on with prep instead and pop them in the oven.)
- Put gemelli pasta in boiling water - once it begins to boil again after adding - cook until al dente - about 6 minutes. Drain, return to pot, drizzle with Tuscan Herb Olive Oil to coat - reserve 1/2 cup liquid.
- As the pasta cooks - remove pan from oven and stir the shallots - add the 4 oz of diced prosciutto and return to oven for 4-5 minutes.
- Remove pan from oven and add the chicken thighs to the top of the shallots and diced prosciutto. Sprinkle with the Seasonello salt (or spice mixture) and drizzle with 1-2 tablespoons of Tuscan Herb Infused Olive Oil. TURN OVEN to BROIL and broil 10 minutes first side - turn and broil after flipping thighs for another 8-10 minutes.
- Remove from oven - place thighs on a plate and add the cooked gemelli pasta to the pan with shallots & diced prosciutto. Add white wine, gently toss with spatula. Sprinkle in 2 tablespoons of grated cheese and adding a little