Venetian Chicken Pasta with Pinenuts, Rosemary and Sultanas

This Venetian Chicken pasta with Pinenuts, Rosemary and Sultanas is a rich and delicious pasta dinner; just grab a supermarket rotisserie chicken and follow our top tips for creating this fabulous dinner in under half an hour.



The sauce in this Venetian chicken pasta is rich and sticky from the chicken juices whilst the sweet sultanas work amazingly with the woody fragrant rosemary. This dish is a comforting yet different chicken pasta.

If you have time you can roast up your own chickens, it will be outstanding, but for a normal mid-week meal a store bought rotisserie chicken and a few short cuts will still give you a delicious dinner. The recipe below is for a store bought chicken, but check the notes for adapting this recipe.



When you buy a rotisserie chicken, if any juice/jelly has collected in the bottom of the container/bag, reserve that. It will be packed with flavor and also gelatin that will help to thicken the sauce.

A chicken stock cube is melted into butter and with the help of some pasta cooking water, it recreates the wonderful juices you get from a roast chicken.


Serving Suggestions:

Side: The roast chicken juices in this pasta make it perfect for serving with a slice of ciabatta to soak up any remaining sauce. However as the pasta is quite rich, we would suggest a single slice of bread and a crisp green salad.

Wine: The sweet sultanas in this dish and the deeply savoury chicken make it an interesting dish to pair wine with. We like the slightly unusual pairing of a Viognier, The complex flavors balance the sweetness and umami elements in this chicken pasta.
For red wine lovers a pinot noir would be a great choice.




Venetian Chicken pasta with Pinenuts, Rosemary and Sultanas
This Venetian Chicken pasta with Pinenuts, Rosemary and Sultanas is a rich and delicious pasta dinner; just grab a supermarket rotisserie chicken and follow our top tips for creating this fabulous dinner in under half an hour.
Course Main Course
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 25 minutes
Servings 4

Ingredients

1 rotisserie chicken
12 oz pappardelle (340g)
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
2 chicken stock cubes
3 rosemary sprigs
1/3 cup sultanas
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts

Instructions

1. Start with the chicken.
2. Strip the meat from the rotisserie chicken and set to one side.
3. If any juice has collected in the rotisserie chicken packet, set this aside with the chicken.
4. Bring a large pan of water to a boil, salt it well and add in the pasta.
5. Set the timer for 1 minutes less than the packet suggests.
6. Whilst the pasta is cooking, melt the butter together with the oil.
7. Crumble in the stock cubes and let them bubble gently together.
8. Add in the chopped leaves of the 3 rosemary sprigs and then take 1 cup of water from the pasta pan and add it to the butter mixture.
9. Add the sultanas to the mixture and reduce the heat down to a low simmer.
10. When the pasta has cooked, reserve a jug of the cooking water.
11. Drain the pasta and add it to the butter and chicken stock.
12. Stir in the chicken meat (plus any reserved juice) and 1/2 cup of the reserved water.
13. Cook over a low heat until the pasta is well coated and the chicken has heated through.
14. Add more cooking water if needed.
15. Serve topped with the toasted pine nuts.