Thread: Bleu cheese and smoked chicken fettuccine

Apologies for not putting up a recipe for a while, the big C is back and the meds have sapped a lot of my energy

This is one of my favourite pasta recipes, definitely a crowd pleaser. You can use any smoked poultry here, i reckon pheasant would work great but for this i'm just using a smoked chicken i got from my butcher.

Ingredients

1 350ml bottle of cream
300g of bleu cheese
Salt
Parsley (fresh please!)
A sprig of thyme (again, FRESH)
1 small smoked chicken
25g of butter
A shallot (just use half an onion if you can't get shallots but they are definitely recommended)
Black peppercorns
1 lemon
2 cloves garlic
Fettuccine

Heavily salt some boiling water and boil your pasta (egg fettuccine works best or better yet, your own home made stuff which I have talked about in an earlier post)

Remove all the meat from the bird and cut into small chunks.
In a pan over low heat add your cream and the shallot (cut into big slices) a teaspoon of peppercorns, the zest of a lemon, the garlic (peel and crush but don't chop) and the sprig of thyme, whack the thyme with the back of a knife first to release the oils better.
Bring to a simmer and keep it going until lovely and fragrant, pass through a strainer and get out all the additions so you are left with just the cream.
Put back in the same pan on a low heat and add chunks off butter (EXTREMELY COLD) allow each piece to melt before adding the next, stir constantly until thickened slightly.

Crumble in the bleu cheese and slowly melt it through, strong heat will kill off much of the flavour so keep that heat low!
Once incorporated, add the chicken and warm it through.

Once your pasta is cooked, add about an 8th of a cup of the pasta water to the sauce then toss it with your drained pasta.

Serve immediately with chopped parsley for garnish.

Enjoy!