Chili, Chicken and Chorizo Linguine

Chili, Chicken and Chorizo Linguine
Home Cooking



This was a throw-together dish I made for lunch today. I've been watching MasterChef Australia religiously and all the pasta dishes featured on the show gave me a huge craving for simple pasta. Nothing too saucy or heavy - just nice ingredients tossed with pasta.


And... that's essentially what I did. I had chicken thigh fillets and chorizo sausages at home, plus a convenient chili bush outside. It also helps that I've been hoarding pasta at home so I have heaps to choose from (spirals, shells, thick and thin...)

Chili, Chicken and Chorizo Linguine
Serves 2

Ingredients:

• 150g chicken thigh fillets (about 2 fillets), cubed
• 1 x chorizo sausage (approx 100g), cubed
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp dried rosemary
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp chopped parsley
• 2 small red chilies, chopped finely
• dried linguine - enough for 2 people (60g or so when dry, depending on how much you want to eat)
• 2-3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• salt and pepper to taste
• grated parmesan to serve

Procedure:

1. Coat the chicken with some salt and dried rosemary. Pan fry the chorizo and chicken pieces on medium heat until the chicken is cooked throughout. Remove from the pan and set aside.2. In the same pan, add the olive oil, chili, garlic and parsley. The flavors should be allowed to infuse the oil. Don't have the heat on too high or the parsley and garlic might burn. Remove from the stove top and set aside.
3. Cook the linguine according to the package instructions. When done, drain the pasta well to make sure there's no excess water (you can leave it in the pot for a while so that excess water evaporates off)
4. Reheat the garlic and chili infused oil. When it's nice and hot, add the lemon juice and linguine. Toss around to coat.5. Add the chicken and chorizo pieces and keep tossing until everything is heated throughout. This shouldn't take more than 2-3min and you don't want the pasta to burn or lose elasticity.
6. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve with freshly grated parmesan.

Chili, chicken and chorizo linguine

I thought the flavors in this pasta dish worked together well. The chili lemon oil complimented the chicken and chorizo nicely. I'm still having trouble getting used to pasta dressed with oil alone. It sounds great in theory but when I do it, it always seems too oily whilst at the same time not being 'saucy' enough. There are recipes similar to this one that suggests using 1/3 cup of olive oil. I used less than 3 tablespoons and it was enough to coat the linguine. Any more would have been excessive, especially since the chorizo is also quite oily.

Close-up of the linguine

Parmesan really brings the dish together - I think you need something to introduce a bit of creaminess and body to the flavors, otherwise the meat and pasta seems too separated.

Even though I wasn't 100% satisfied, Charlie was crazy about this dish. I have never been complimented so much before! I guess if you're into chorizo and like a bit of spice, this is a really simple dish to pull together.