What she’d tell you
The real one is only butter, cheese and pasta water: no cream at all. I have added chicken because you need feeding, but the trick is the same: the sauce is made in the pan, never in a jar.
What you need
Written for 4. Change that in the app and the amounts follow.
Tick things off as you get them ready.
Continue to the method ↓
How it goes
Bring a large pot of well-salted water to the boil. Slice the chicken into strips and season them.
Melt half the butter in a wide pan over medium-high heat. Cook the chicken strips 6 minutes, turning once, until golden and cooked through. Lift them out.
Cook the pasta one minute less than the packet says. Before draining, save two full cups of the cooking water.
Lower the heat under the pan. Add the rest of the butter and the garlic and cook 30 seconds: no colour.
Add the drained pasta, the parmesan and a large splash of pasta water. Toss hard and keep tossing until the cheese melts into a glossy sauce. Add more water whenever it tightens.
Fold the chicken back through, grind over plenty of black pepper, and serve at once with parsley if you have it.
If you haven’t got it
Parmesan
pecorino for something sharper and saltier
Chicken Breast
leftover roast chicken, torn and warmed through at the end
Keeping it
Two days in the fridge. It will look claggy and cold: that is normal.
A pan over low heat with a good splash of milk, tossed until it loosens again.
