Chicken Scampi

Chicken Scampi

I'm starting to get real creative with the sauces I use because, quite frankly, there aren't a whole lot of sauces available to those on the SCD. But a scampi sauce is basically verbatim SCD, and seeing that I'm WAY to poor to afford shrimp, I decided to make this recipe my own and use chicken instead. So here it is, the poor man's chicken scampi.








Ingredients:

1 lb chicken breasts
2 Tbs. butter
2 Tbs. olive oil
1 tsp. red pepper (cayenne pepper)
1/4 cup dry white wine (SCD approved)
1 Tbs. lemon juice
1-2 Tbs. parsley

Instructions:

Chop the chicken breasts into strips, roughly finger width. Heat a medium frying or sauté pan to high heat. Lower to medium-high heat and add in the butter and olive oil. Once the butter begins to foam, add the red pepper, the chicken strips, and the dry white wine, in that order. Cook until the chicken is tender and white on the inside, about 5-7 minutes each side. In the last minute of cook time, add the lemon juice to the pan and stir. Remove from heat and top with parsley.

Notes:

*If you're not sure what a dry white wine is, don't worry, I didn't know either. It's where there is less than 5 gm of sugar per liter. The safest bet is to find a wine that, under the nutrition facts, says "Sugars 0g" as well as "Total Carbohydrates 0g". Dry white wines are generally available in local grocery stores.
*The if you add the wine before the chicken, it will boil all over the place and make a huge mess. So make sure you do that step in the correct order: chicken first, then white wine.
*For those of you who are curious, the far majority of the alcohol in the wine does cook out. Just trust the chemist in me on this one.
*A traditional scampi recipe calls for garlic. If you wanna add some, add 3-4 cloves, minced, and sauté it with the red pepper for a minute, or until the edges begin to brown. Then add the chicken and the wine after. I never add garlic because I never have it on hand. (That or I'm too lazy to chop it up...)
*You should have everything on hand normally, which makes this a easy meal to make last minute. The wine keeps well, so I suggest you invest in a bottle and always have it on hand. Same goes for lemon juice. Most health stores sell NFC lemon juice. Worth the investment, I promise.