Linguine with Grilled Chicken and Citrus Basil Chiffonade

This won’t have quite such a haunting, delicate flavour as it would with citrus basil but local fine-leaf basil or sweet basil will do as well, or perhaps a little (a very little) mint or a smidgen (no more) of Spanish thyme or fine leaf thyme or that spiky small bush with tiny leaves and clumps of tincy-wincy white flowers known to botanists (I think) as Lippia and to housewives here as — who knows what? I don’t, but when pressed I use it instead of fine-leaf thyme. Does it have a local name? If so, will someone kindly tell me what it is?

This dish won’t have the same taste without it but, used judiciously, whichever substitute you use, should produce an appetising dish. The original recipe called for fettucine — which I don’t have because I can only stock so many kinds of pasta in my kitchen cupboards before the weevils zoom in on any left unused for a certain period of time. I find linguine does as well as fettucine. The original recipe asked for a pound of fettucine to serve four people, but I reckon that’s too much pasta for anyone watching a waistline so I tend to halve that amount — as I have done here. However if you prefer lashings of pasta for dinner, go ahead, use a pound of pasta for four people.

Ingredients:

8 ozs fettucine or linguine

2 boneless chicken breasts

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/4 cup olive oil (note, I needed half a cup to coat my pasta)

Bunch (about 2-3 ozs) citrus basil (stems included)

METHOD

Wash the chicken breasts with lime as usual. Brush the chicken breasts with olive oil. Grill (I used my George Foreman grill) then allow to rest, ten minutes. While the chicken is resting, cook the pasta in boiling salted water and… wash and pat dry the citrus basil, strip the leaves off the stems, roll several leaves together — imagine you’re making a cigar. Slice this citrus basil “cigar” into thin cross-sections about an eighth of an inch wide. Voila! It’s a “chiffonade.” Repeat with the rest of the basil leaves.

Slice the chicken breast on the bias.

Drain the pasta, add the olive oil and toss to coat the pasta. Toss with the sliced chicken breast, salt and pepper.

Garnish with the prepared lemon basil chiffonade and serve immediately with a green salad. Offer guests grated Parmesan (preferably freshly grated if you can afford it) for those for whom pasta dishes just aren’t complete without it.

Serves 4 Bon appetit!