Pesto Chicken–Easiest Recipe Ever

Now a days I have almost stopped cooking. Since my parents are here, I am having a great time with them. On top of that I am on the luxury of home (mum) –made food. Feels like my bachelor days, where I never cared about food or any household matters. I know this won’t last long but enjoying every bits of it till it lasts.

Even though I am not cooking much, that doesn’t stop me from chatting about food and recipes. I was having a chat with few fellow foodies and while discussing salmon recipes, it kind of struck me of making salmon with pesto. It was bit late for me to get salmon that day but I was not ready to let go of cooking salmon with pesto. After some time I compromised with the situation and decided to do the same experiment with chicken. Because that was the only thing available in my freezer at that point.

I took the chicken out, thawed it for some time and then marinated the chicken pieces in the red pesto I bought a week ago in the Foodie Festival. Used a generous amount as this is the only thing I was adding to the chicken. I had tried this pesto with pasta last week, so I knew I don't need to add anything else other than salt. Kept the chicken in the fridge for overnight but I guess this step is not necessary, if you are in a hurry then 4-5 hrs. of marination would do.

Before placing in the pre-heated oven I seasoned the meat and cooked for 45 –50 minutes in 180 degree C. Once done, rest it for 5 minutes and then serve. I served it with sliced red onion, goes very well as a starter. This is the easiest preparation I have done for chicken, which turns out to be really good.

Linguine with Smoked Salmon

I always look forward to the weekend. No matter where I am in the week, just the thought of weekend relaxing and chance to sleep more than the weekdays makes me feel relaxed. You might think I am such a lazy bum, but trust me, this trick works when you have mountains of work around you. Some weeks I have more work pressure than other. By the time I come back home, I am terribly tired and no energy left cook a meal. That is when I make my Speedy Linguine. This recipe takes less than 10 minutes to prepare and is an absolute pleasure.

 

Earlier to this post, every time I cooked this meal was in the night and been very tired so never really had the energy to take the photos. This time I made it in the weekend because, one it’s easy and fast, two I wanted to take the photos this time.  

Ingredients

Smoked salmon

Linguine (handful)

6-8 Cherry tomatoes

2-3 cloves of garlic

Red chilli flakes (optional)

Olive oil

Salt

Curly parsley leaves (handful - chopped)

 

Method:

Boil the linguine in salted water till al-dente. In a pan heat the olive oil and add the chopped garlic and fry till the aroma comes. Now add the red chilli flakes to it and fry for another minute before you add the salmon. After adding the smoked salmon immediately add the cherry tomatoes and chopped parsley, mix it well and don’t cook for more than a minute. Now add the cooked pasta, give it a good stir and check the seasoning. Remove from the heat after a minute. Garnish with some chopped parsley and drizzle some olive oil on top. Serve hot.

Note: you can add some toasted pine nuts on top, really makes a difference (I didn’t because I was running out of patience :) ).