This recipe is the fount of all.
It's the first thing I learned to cook from scratch for myself, and I've made it a thousand times in a thousand variations. Once you've learned to cook this, you can cook anything. Parents, are your kids going to uni or otherwise leaving home? Teach them this before they go. My mum taught it to me when I was a teenager because she had to go into hospital for an operation and I had to keep house while she was recovering. Being a generous soul, she took back control of her house as soon as she was well enough so I never cooked at home again, but I had this as the bedrock of everything I learned to cook for myself when I went away to Uni. Knowing how to cook this is a vital life skill. It'll save you a fortune in horrible jarred pasta sauces, too.
My girlfriend wasn't exactly sure what time she'd be home tonight so we wanted something quick that I could start the moment she got in (this can be ready in half an hour, 20 minutes with practice) and not have to wait too long to eat. Also we've got a ton of food in the house at the moment (including a load of chicken breasts in the freezer that my girlfriend's mum got on a bulk discount) so we're looking to just use up what we've got without buying anything more.
The first thing to do is chop an onion into smallish pieces (my knife skills are crap so I'm never going so say "fine") and peel then crush and/or slice a clove of garlic.
Get the onion and garlic going over a medium heat in a frying pan with a splash of oil while you cut two chicken breasts into small pieces. The aim is to eat with just a fork, so cut the chicken into pieces that you'd be happy to put into your mouth without cutting up any further.
Chuck the chicken into the pan and seal it all over. By "seal," I mean brown the meat on all sides (although with chicken, it goes from pink to white). There is no actual sealing involved here, it's just a useful mental image to mean that you need to cook it on all sides. It's not strictly necessary from a health point of view - the bacteria in the meat will still be killed if you miss this step - but we do it for flavour. Meat that's been fried directly in the pan tastes good, so this type of dish always includes this step of cooking meat in the hot pan before adding any liquid.
Ordinarily I'd add a couple of sliced-up mushrooms at this point but we didn't have any. Mushrooms will always lift a pasta dish.
Timings for this dish will vary slightly depending on your pasta, but most dried pasta takes about ten minutes to cook. Assuming your pasta is in this range, the moment that you put the chicken into the frying pan is a good time to light the gas under a pan of water for the pasta. You've got to chuck a pinch of salt in the water and I always throw in some olive oil too, because an Italian friend's mum once told me too. Opinions vary, but I can't ignore an Italian's mum when it comes to cooking pasta.
When the chicken's cooked on all sides, season with salt, pepper and a generous sprinkling of dried basil. The pasta water will probably be approaching the boil by now.
Assuming the timings have all worked out, throw some pasta into the pan of boiling water and a tin of tomatoes into the frying pan. Turn the frying pan down to minimum, and keep the pasta water just on the boil. If the timings haven't all matched up, don't wait for the water to boil but put the tomatoes in with the meat as soon as it's all browned; you don't want to burn it and the liquid in the tomatoes will prevent that. A few slugs of Worcestershire sauce will help all round.
Can we talk about tinned tomatoes for a minute? I know they're not the most rivetting subject in the world but they're one of those things I get my knickers in a twist about.
They should be a pretty homogeneous product, right? So why does the price vary so wildly? As with all things, there's a lower limit that you really shouldn't reach. The supermarkets all have a budget range around the 20p mark, but they're vile. I don't know how they manage to make them taste so bad, it really shouldn't be possible. Then you get the own brands which seem to hover around 50p, right up to the organic or Taste The Difference type brands (I can't taste the difference) which edge up towards a whole pound - and then there's the likes of Napolina, which actually don't taste very nice or have any USP but just seem to think that they can charge more because they have a bigger marketing budget so everyone's heard of them.
I buy tinned tomatoes from Lidl or my corner shop, where they seem to have found a happy compromise of decent quality tomatoes hiding behind unfashionable labels with brand-names you've never heard of, or from the supermarkets when they're on a sensible bulk discount. They last forever, after all, so there's no harm in having a stock of them. I think 35p is a sensible amount of money to spend on a tin of tomatoes.
I'm sorry if I'm making a fuss over a few pence, but I use tinned tomatoes all the time so it's worth shaving those few pence off. I use petrol every day too - you'd jump at the chance if you were offered money off a litre of petrol!
We need to talk about pasta too. Pasta packets and recipes that I find online always seem to quote 75g per person at a main course. I think this is far too much. Today I weighed out 100g for the two of us, which was still too much.
I'm not going to get all preachy about pasta varieties though. Certain chefs (are your ears burning, Mr Oliver?) will insist on certain pasta shapes for certain dishes - all very well in a restaurant, but surely a bit unnecessary at home? We had fusili in the cupboard, so I used fusili today. If you've got penne, use penne.
Once the pasta's cooked, drain it, chuck it into the pan with the tomato sauce and mix it all about.
Serve with grated cheese over the top. Parmesan would have been the first choice, but we had cheddar so cheddar it was.
There was too much. This made two servings, plus a tupperware for the freezer.
Remember how I said this was the fount of all? This was where I started learning to cook. Once I knew how to do this, there were loads of possibilities.
Substitute minced beef for chicken, add kidney beans, use chilli powder instead of basil and rice instead of pasta: chilli con carne.
Minced lamb, rosemary, put mashed potato on top and finish it off in the oven: shepherd's pie.
Experiment with spices and call it curry.
Learn to make cheese sauce (it's not hard and I'll cover it here one day) and you can make lasagne.
Or just play around with this basic recipe. It's delicious with bacon added. Or red wine. Or some double cream right at the end. Or different herbs. Or use cheap cuts of red meat instead of chicken and cook it for ages with the lid on.
There's a huge market in massively expensive jars of cooking sauces. You don't need them. You need this recipe, tinned tomatoes, a healthy stock of different herbs and a bit of imagination. Once you've done this a few times you'll find that those preserved sauces in jars taste a bit weird anyway.
Taste verdict
I wasn't expecting a rapturous reception to such a simple dish, but my girlfriend loved it! I like it. I should do - I've been cooking it since I was 16 - which is now half a lifetime ago...
Financial verdict
Two chicken breasts - approx £4. I insist on free range, which may put this price up a little depending on the supermarkets and butchers in your area. You can use thighs instead - the supermarkets sell them skinless and boneless now for much less than breasts, and I think they're just as nice.
An onion - 20p
100g pasta, a clove of garlic, a splash of Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, basil - pennies, from store
There was too much for the two of us so a third portion went into a tupperware in the freezer, making it £1.40 per portion.
The skinny
Chop an onion.
Peel/crush/chop a clove of garlic.
Fry the onion and garlic in oil over a low heat.
Cut up two chicken breasts into bite-sized pieces.
Add the chicken to the frying pan and turn until browned on all sides.
Bring a pan of water to the boil and start cooking 100g dried pasta.
Once the chicken is browned (whitened?) all over, season with salt and pepper, add basil, and add a tin of tomatoes and a glug of Worcestershire sauce.
Continue to cook the chicken on the lowest possible heat while the pasta cooks.
When the pasta is ready, drain it and add it to the tomato sauce.
Mix everything around.
Serve (with grated cheese on top, if you want).
WeightWatchers ProPoints
9 per portion
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