Chicken Scampi — The Night Kevin Asked for Seconds

Valentine's Day. I made the shrimp pasta — homemade fettuccine, cream sauce with garlic and white wine and parmesan, shrimp sautéed in butter until pink and curled. It was not Iowa food. It was not Marlene food. It was me-food, which is a category I'm still building, the recipes that don't come from a family card box but from a woman who is forty years old in November and still discovering what she likes to cook when nobody's watching.

Kevin looked at the plate and said, "Is that shrimp?" He said it the way a man says "Is that a spaceship?" — with wonder and mild suspicion. Shrimp does not appear regularly in central Iowa. Shrimp is exotic here. We are a beef-and-pork people, and seafood is something that happens to other states. But the shrimp was buttery and the pasta was silky and Kevin ate it with the concentration of a man experiencing something new and liking it. He said, "We should have this again." That's Kevin proposing a repeat. That's the highest honor in his culinary vocabulary.

The kids had Valentine's parties at school. Jack's seed valentines, year three. Sunflower seeds on index cards. The tradition is established. Other kids give candy hearts. Jack Holloway gives agricultural futures. One kid's parent called to say the sunflower seed actually sprouted in their yard. Jack was thrilled. "That's a successful propagation event," he said. He is seven, almost eight. He calls things "propagation events." This child.

I drove to Grinnell Saturday. Dad's planning the garden — his seed order is in, the catalogs are annotated, and he's added a new item this year: strawberries. A small strawberry patch, six plants, tucked into a sunny corner of the yard. I asked why strawberries. He said, "Your mother likes strawberries." He's planting strawberries because Marlene likes them. He is sixty-eight years old, a man who farmed commodity crops for forty years, and he's planting strawberries for his wife. The scale of his farming has changed. The love in it hasn't changed at all.

The shrimp pasta I made that Valentine’s Day was the first meal I’d cooked in years that felt genuinely mine — not from a family recipe box, not from a potluck tradition, just butter and garlic and white wine and something I wanted. If you want to bring that same spirit to your table, this chicken scampi is the version I reach for when I need a dish that feels a little special but doesn’t require a coastal zip code. It has all the warmth of that Valentine’s dinner: the garlic, the wine, the butter, the pasta — everything that made Kevin look up from his plate with that quiet, wondering expression I’ll carry for a long time.

Chicken Scampi

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 20 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch strips
• 12 oz linguine or fettuccine
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped

Instructions

1. Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup pasta water before draining. Set pasta aside.
2. Season the chicken. Pat chicken strips dry and season on both sides with salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes.
3. Sear the chicken. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, melt 1 tablespoon butter with the olive oil. Add chicken in a single layer and cook 3—4 minutes per side until golden and cooked through. Transfer to a plate and tent loosely with foil.
4. Build the sauce. Reduce heat to medium. Add remaining 2 tablespoons butter to the same skillet. Once melted, add garlic and cook 60 seconds, stirring constantly, until fragrant but not browned.
5. Deglaze with wine. Pour in the white wine and chicken broth, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Let the liquid simmer and reduce by about half, 3—4 minutes.
6. Add cream and lemon. Stir in the heavy cream and lemon juice. Simmer 2 minutes until the sauce thickens slightly.
7. Combine everything. Add the drained pasta to the skillet and toss to coat, adding a splash of reserved pasta water if the sauce needs loosening. Nestle the chicken back in among the noodles.
8. Finish and serve. Remove from heat. Sprinkle with Parmesan and fresh parsley. Divide among plates and serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 580 | Protein: 38g | Fat: 22g | Carbs: 54g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 430mg