Oh, sorry. I'm here. Back in the 90's, I used to work at this Italian place called Santo Pietro's. It was known for it's garlic knots and celebrities. It was located in the Beverly Glen Centre and was essentially the hangout for celebrities who lived in the area.
It's where I realized that Prego and Ragu were NOT the standard in Italian food....One of my favorite dishes here was called Pasta el Polo. Basically it's chicken and broccoli in a cream sauce. Fun fact-Wayne Gretzky used to order this dish (but without the broccoli and with all white meat chicken) with a Diet Coke all the time!
So yes, you're right. The word for chicken in Italian is pollo, but Santo Pietro's spelled it polo and it was pronounced like Marco Polo. I don't know. I never asked. It just was. So it's how I will spell it here.
But who cares how it's spelled, because more importantly it looks like this...
Okay. So this is the super short cut version. The real version uses fresh chicken and fresh broccoli. I'm using frozen chicken and frozen broccoli. In my opinion, I think the fresh broccoli is a lot better. But at Santo Pietro's, we used to pre-blanch the broccoli for faster cooking and that's an extra step I'm not interested in doing...so frozen it is. Plus, it's what I had on hand. Shrug.
Here's the crew and their mugshots:
pasta of your choice (Santo Pietro's version used fusilli or rotelli- corkscrew shaped pasta)
1- 2 pieces of chicken (fresh or frozen, breast or thigh-up to you)
1- 2 bags of frozen broccoli (12 oz. size)
garlic (as much or as little as you want)
1 cup of cream (more if you like it super saucy...mmmmm)
1/4 cup of butter
1 cup of parmesean or romano cheese (or BOTH! Oh la la!)
salt and pepper
I used cavatappi pasta, which is the hollow corkscrew pasta. I know pasta is pasta is pasta. But I really think the shapes matter depending on what sauce you're using. For example, I really think the linguine pasta works wonders with my Thai Red Curry Sauce. Or spaghetti is the perfect pair from my Meat Sauce/Pasta Gravy. I can't imagine using any other pasta with those sauces. There's something about the shapes of different pastas that hold onto different sauces and flavors. Corkscrew shape pastas work best with this sauce. Maybe I'm crazy....You decide. About the pasta. Not about me being crazy.
Start by cooking your pasta in a large pot of salted water.
I used the entire 1 pound box.
When the pasta was done cooking, I turned off the heat and added the bags of frozen broccoli directly into the pasta and water. Use 1-2 bags, depending on how much broccoli you want in there. I think 2 bags is perfect. If you're paying attention, you noticed this is a bag of broccoli AND cauliflower. I didn't have just broccoli and I happen to like cauliflower so there you have it. That's how I roll.
I like to use my kitchen scissors and give the veggies a quick chop up to make them bite sized
(Okay, okay...its really so the Indian won't pick out the broccoli but shhhhhhh. Let's keep that on the DL).
Stir your frozen veggies around in the hot pasta and water and immediately pour into a colander.
Set aside. We'll come back to this soon.
I used to make the sauce in a separate pan and toss the pasta into the sauce. But now I just use the same pot that I used to cook the pasta....because that's how I roll. You don't even need to rinse it.
Over medium heat, I add 1/4 cup of real butter. That's half a stick if you're counting...
Add your chopped chicken breast or thighs. I used 2 large thighs, but like Wayne Gretsky, I prefer mine with white meat... but dark meat is what I had so....you know. That's how I roll.
Add as much or as little pepper as you want.
I add a little bit of salt here, too. I like to season the chicken as its cooking. But we'll be adding parmesan cheese later so don't over salt now. Saute chicken for about 2-3 minutes, depending on how large your pieces are. Make sure they are cooked through. (You could leave out the chicken if you wanted to keep this vegetarian....but then you'd have to call it...well, not Pasta el Polo.)
Now it's magic time. Add a heaping tablespoon of crushed garlic.
(Feel free to use more or less depending on what you like.)
Mmmm. Mmmm. Mmmm.
Careful not to burn or crisp your garlic.
Add 1 cup of heavy cream to your garlic and chicken.
You're welcome to add more if you like it saucier. Back in the day, Santo Pietro's single serving used a cup and more for just one order and we're using a cup for 4-5 servings. But that was the decadent 90's and the goal now is too not have a heart attack, right?
To the mix, add 1 cup of parmesan cheese or parmesan/romano mix. Santo Pietro's used a really high quality parmesan cheese. I just had this Kraft brand on hand. They both work well.
At this point, I turn off the heat and stir everything together. If you over "cook" parmesan cheese, it clumps into this weird chunky mess that you can't get off your spoon and it sticks/burns to the bottom of your pot. You want it to just look like this:
If you need to, remove your sauce from the stove completely to prevent your cheese "curdling" or burning.
Remember you pasta veggie mix? Grab it now and add to your sauce.
Stir and make sure all your pasta and broccoli get tossed around in your yummy sauce.
Taste it. If you want to add more salt, do it now.
That's it. Shortcut Pasta el Polo.
Serves 4-5 people.
I like to eat this while wearing an over sized plaid shirt, biker shorts and a scrunchie in my hair.
Thank you for sharing this. My favorite meal so much so that I would order one for there and one to go. Every month.
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