Your Cooking Lesson

Advice, explanation, and in-depth information to help you achieve recipe success.

The now-iconic dish Spaghetti Primavera burst onto the North American culinary scene in the mid-1970s when it was first served as a non-menu “special” dish prepared tableside at the legendary French restaurant Le Cirque in Manhattan. At the time, when most Americans believed that pasta was inseparable from tomato sauce, the combination of al dente spaghetti with crisp-tender vegetables in a creamy cheese sauce was a revelation. Today the dish remains popular, in many variations, as a seasonal first course or a rich and satisfying vegetarian entrée.

Although the word primavera means “springtime” in Italian, the original recipe for Le Cirque’s Spaghetti Primavera included fresh tomatoes, zucchini, and basil—which, in my experience, are summer produce. So, in keeping with the spirit of the season, our recipe includes truly springtime vegetables only.

Penne Primavera can be a complete dish in its own right. You can serve it as a traditional Italian first course, or as a rich and satisfying vegetarian entrée. However, its creamy cheese sauce can be a bit rich to serve in quantity. Teaming it with lemony pan-roasted chicken breast cuts the richness and adds more protein to your meal.

The vast majority of chicken sold in North America is fabricated during processing into boneless, skinless breasts. These typically have little flavor and, because they contain virtually no fat, when cooked to the USDA-required internal temperature of 165°F, they invariably have a dry mouthfeel. As you’ve undoubtably experienced, chicken roasted with the skin on is more moist and flavorful, because the fat in and under the skin creates flavor and succulence. Serious cooks willing to spend some time on poultry fabrication purchase whole fryer chickens and break them down into skin-on legs, breasts, and stock bones. However, this requires skill and time. I recommend a middle-of-the-road option: Buy bone-in, skin-on split chicken breasts, and remove the bones. Because these are usually cut from large, more mature chickens, one breast half yields enough meat for two entrée portions.

For best results, choose a sharp boning knife with a flexible blade. Turn the chicken breast up on its side with the thicker end on the cutting board and the thinner end up. Insert the knife blade between the bones and the breast meat, and slice downward with the blade sliding against the contour of the bones. As you cut, pull outward on the meat to open it out and away from the bones. When the blade reaches the cutting board, the breast meat will have completely separated from the bones.

With the now boneless breast on the cutting board skin-side-down, trim away any excess skin and fat. Make sure to leave enough skin on the breast to completely cover the breast meat. When you did the initial boning out, if you’ve cut accurately and close to the bones, the chicken tender will be intact against the larger breast lobe. Because the tender usually overcooks when left on the breast, it’s best to remove it and reserve it for another use, such as in a stir-fry. You can keep a plastic bag for chicken tenders in the freezer and “collect” them until you have enough to cook. As you can see in the photos, a chicken tender contains a tough, white tendon running vertically through it. It’s an efficient, time-saving practice to remove the tendon before freezing so you don’t have to dirty a knife and cutting board when you’re ready to cook the tenders.

Your next step is to fabricate the primavera vegetables. Asparagus fabrication requires some special knowledge and skills. When an asparagus stalk emerges from the soil in early spring, its tip is a tightly-furled bud that, if not harvested, will develop into feathery branches. The tip is the tenderest part of the spear. The stem part of the spear is more tender toward the tip end, and gradually becomes tougher toward the butt end, where it’s cut away from the ground at soil level. Fortunately, an asparagus spear will self-separate between tough and tender! Just grasp an end with each hand, and gently bend the spear until it breaks. Discard the tough butt end, shown below on the right. To ensure even cooking, thick asparagus spears need to have their tough skin peeled away. Using a swivel peeler with a light touch, begin scraping off only a thin layer of skin from about the stalk’s mid-point out to the butt end, rotating the stalk as you go. For this recipe, cut the stalks on a sharp diagonal into 2-inch lengths.

Spring-harvested turnips balance their inherent peppery flavor with the sweetness of youth. Trim and peel the turnip, then cut it into batonnets: French fry shapes just a little smaller than 1/4 x 1/4 x 2 inches.

Most commercially-available snap peas have fibrous strings that need to be removed before cooking. The most efficient way to do this is with a paring knife. Trim off one end and pull gently. If a string emerges, grasp it between your thumb and the knife blade and continue pulling downward until the string completely releases from the pod. Turn the snap pea so that the other end is at the top and repeat to string the other side of the pod. If the snap peas are large, cut them in half on a sharp diagonal.

Green beans need only have the stem ends trimmed away and then cut on the diagonal.

Peel the young carrots and then cut into rounds a little less than 1/4-inch thick.

“English peas” is the name now used to distinguish fresh shell peas, or pod peas, from other types such as snap peas and snow peas. Nothing beats the sweet flavor and tender, juicy texture of English peas freshly picked from a local garden and eaten within hours of harvest. True, it requires some time and effort to remove the peas from their pods. But for me this is a peaceful, mindless activity that can be done while watching TV or relaxing with family members. However, a frequent problem with buying commercially-raised English peas is the time elapsed between harvest and table. The moment a pea pod is removed from the plant, the natural sugar in the peas begins converting into starch, causing them to lose flavor and acquire a dry and chewy mouthfeel. Unless you have your own garden, a nearby farmer’s market, or access to a high-quality produce purveyor, you may do better using frozen peas. The benefit of frozen peas is that they’re processed immediately after harvesting and, so, retain their flavor and texture. It’s important to understand that, before freezing, the shelled peas are blanched to optimal doneness; no further cooking is needed. Just thaw them and add to your dish.

For this recipe we’ll par-cook the vegetables ahead of time, as part of our mise-en-place. I’ve encountered pasta primavera recipes that specify boiling the vegetables along with the pasta. Indeed, this is an efficient idea; however, because each of our vegetables cooks at a different rate, it requires precision timing. After a long day at work I’m simply not up for dealing with that! It’s far less stressful to blanch each vegetable separately to its optimal, al dente texture…

At this point all that remains is to grate the Parmigiano cheese and assemble the remaining ingredients. Here’s your mise tray:

It’s dinnertime—let’s COOK!

Pan-roasting is the ideal cooking method for relatively small, thick cuts of meat and poultry. The rationale for pan-roasting is simple: Because of the item’s small size, if cooked only in the oven—no matter how high the heat—the interior will cook to the desired internal temperature before the exterior will achieve our desired golden-brown color and crispy crust. So, we first brown the exterior by sautéing it. Start cooking the chicken breast skin-side-down until golden, then turn over to lightly brown the bottom. Large, thick chicken breasts benefit from a brief sauté on the thick side, as well.

Our recipe for Penne Primavera features a classic cream reduction sauce. Because heavy cream contains a high proportion of milk fat it can boil without curdling and, when enough water boils away, it will thicken into a nappé consistency (thick enough to coat a spoon but thin enough to flow on the plate). The addition of grated Parmigiano cheese functions to further thicken it. In Italian cuisine, pasta in such a sauce is called alla panna. North Americans are accustomed to calling this preparation “Alfredo” sauce, after a mid-20th century Roman restaurateur who purportedly invented it. But in Italy, pasta alla panna has been made for centuries.

Once the cream is reduced to about half its original volume, you’ll add the vegetables and pasta. Use a “spider” strainer to lift the pasta out of the cooking water and into the sauce. When you do, some of the pasta water will accompany the pasta—this is necessary.

Now you’re ready to plate. First, mound the penne on the left front of a warm pasta bowl, and plant a bouquet of baby arugula at the back. The arugula adds a cool, crisp mouthfeel element and a subtle bitterness that pleasantly contrasts with the creamy sweetness of the pasta sauce. It also adds the dimension of height to your presentation. Use a chef’s professional technique to plate the chicken: Slide your knife blade under the lined-up slices, steady the slices with your tongs, lift, and transfer the slices to the plate. Fan the slices attractively against the arugula and on the pasta. Finally, sprinkle a line of chives across the plate.