Tonight we moved on to the main course – Grilled Lemon Chicken with Linguine, fresh green beans on the side.  This is the warmest day of this week and I wanted to cook this meal on the grill but of course that isn’t the easiest way to cook pasta.   One note; we do not have air conditioning in our house – most do not have air conditioning in their homes here in Vermont.  Many do not even have a/c in their cars (I don’t).  To offset the heat of boiling pasta in the kitchen in the evening, I decided to boil the pasta to an al dente level early in the day and then reheat it in the evening.  Not the most gourmet method but it worked.  I didn’t rinse the pasta until right before I served it, and I rinsed it in very, very hot water.  This worked fine.

I found this recipe on allrecipes.com.  The recipe is as follows:

Chicken Lemon Linguine

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, or more as needed
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced, or more to taste
• 2 1/2 cups milk
• 3 cubes chicken bouillon
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 cup cold water
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/2 pound seasoned grilled chicken chunks
• 1 (16 ounce) package linguine pasta
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, or to taste

Directions

Heat butter and olive oil together in a saucepan over medium heat; cook and stir onion and garlic until tender but not browned, about 5 minutes. Add milk, bouillon, oregano, salt, and pepper to onion mixture; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and cook sauce for 5 minutes. Whisk cold water and cornstarch together in a bowl until smooth. Mix cornstarch mixture and chicken into sauce; cook until heated through and thickened, about 5 minutes.

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Cook linguine at a boil until tender yet firm to the bite, about 11 minutes; drain.

Turn heat under saucepan with sauce to low; add lemon juice, parsley, and lemon zest and cook until heated through, 1 to 2 minutes. Add pasta, toss to coat, and transfer to a serving bowl; top with Parmesan cheese.

My changes to this recipe;  I increased the cornstarch by one tablespoon (a total of three tablespoons), I grilled a flattened chicken breast, seasoned with olive oil, salt and a little lemon pepper then cut the chicken into one inch strips.  I used white pepper and a bit of the lemon pepper in the sauce.  I cut down on the Oregano, only used 1/2 teaspoon.  This recipe was served by putting the pasta onto the plate, adding strips of chicken, spooning sauce over this and then the parsley was sprinkled on the top.  I omitted the Parmesan cheese.

The green beans were so beautiful, fresh from the field, that I only steamed them for 3 minutes.  I always add salt and lemon to the water when steaming vegetables and this worked ideally with this side dish.

Initially I thought to serve a chardonnay with this meal but after preparing it, I thought a Pinot Gris would be better.  We opened both a Reata Chardonnay (not the Franciscan Napa Valley Chardonnay as originally planned) and a Da Vinci Pinot Grigio.  The Da Vinci Pinot Grigio won the evening, hands down.   I believe it was the crispness of the citrus and acidity of the Da Vinci that paired so perfectly with the lemon in the sauce.  The Reata was nice but a bit too complex for this meal.  It could have been the warm weather, difficult to say.  The Reata is one of my favorite chardonnays, it is not overly buttery or heavy.  Instead, the Reata starts out with some acidity but has a smooth finish.   This is a very good chardonnay but for this particular pairing I would go with the Da Vinci Pinot Grigio.

This meal was excellent on a warm summer evening.  The lemon in the sauce was light and refreshing, the wine was crisp and of course the company was wonderful.

The fourth course is the salad course, odd for us here in the States.  We usually eat our salad before the main course but I am looking forward to this salad.