Chicken on pasta with mushrooms and zucchini in chili-ginger sauce and tomato-onion topping

Ingredients for 2 servings:

• 250 g mushrooms, white
• 150 g zucchini
• 2 garlic cloves
• 12 g ginger root
• 2 spring onions, white parts only
• 500 ml chicken broth
• 100 ml cream
• 1 tbsp, heaped tomato paste
• 1 tsp Sriracha sauce
• 5 g vanilla paste
• 1 tbsp tarragon, dried
• 4 tsp olive oil for frying
• n. B. Pfeffer
• 250 g chicken inner fillet(s)
• n. B. Pfeffer
• 2 tsp cornstarch
• 2 tsp sesame oil, roasted
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 6 drops of liquid smoke
• 50 g date tomatoes
• 2 spring onions, green parts only
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1 tsp sumac
• ½ tsp sugar
• 1 pinch(s) cumin powder
• 200 g pasta, e.g. fusilli

Instructions

Working time approx. 25 minutes; Cooking/baking time approx. 25 minutes; Total time approx. 50 minutes

Clean the mushrooms and cut into even slices. Wash the zucchini, halve them lengthwise, and then slice them in the same way. Peel the ginger with a vegetable peeler and then finely dice it. Peel the garlic and press or finely chop it. Wash the spring onions and remove the root ends. Cut the white parts into wide rings and the green parts into narrow rings and keep them separate. Wash the persimmon tomatoes and then slice them. Cut the flesh into bite-sized pieces. For the topping, pour the olive oil into a small bowl and make a marinade with sumac, sugar, and a little ground cumin. Then add the green rings of the spring onions and the tomatoes to the bowl and mix everything well. Spread the mushrooms out dry in a deep frying pan and sauté for about 4 minutes over high heat, stirring frequently, until most of the water in the mushrooms has evaporated. Add half of the olive oil to the frying pan and fry for another 4 minutes over medium heat. Remove the mushrooms from the pan and set aside. Pour the remaining olive oil into the pan and sauté the zucchini along with the garlic and the white parts of the spring onions for about 3-4 minutes. Then add the ginger and stir. Add the tomato paste to the vegetables and let it roast briefly. Now deglaze everything with the chicken stock and add the tarragon and chili sauce. Bring the liquid to a boil and then add the pasta. Then simmer everything with the lid closed for about 10 minutes over medium heat. Meanwhile, mix the sliced ​​meat in a bowl with the pepper and starch. Heat the sesame oil in a pan until very hot and brown the meat for a few minutes on all sides. Towards the end, add the soy sauce and continue to fry briefly, tossing, until the meat has a nice shine and color. Finally, lightly flavor the meat with the liquid smoke. After the zucchini and pasta are cooked, check whether they are almost al dente. Then add the mushrooms again, pour in the cream and add the vanilla paste. Bring everything back to a boil and continue simmering until the pasta is al dente and the sauce has the right consistency. When serving, pour the meat over the pasta and vegetable mixture and spread the tomato and onion topping over it. Notes: It’s best to use pasta that needs to cook for about 9 minutes until it’s cooked through. For pasta that cooks for less time, the cooking time stated above would be too long and there might still be too much liquid in the dish at the end. It’s better to toss the meat with the starch just before frying so the pieces don’t stick together. Remove the mushrooms from the pan after frying so they don’t get cooked in the broth while the pasta cooks. Don’t add the ginger to the garlic at the beginning. It should only cook with the pasta to preserve the citrus flavors of the ginger. So that the tomato and onion topping can be poured over the dish, the marinade should be as liquid as possible. That’s why I used sumac as the acid instead of liquid vinegar and didn’t add salt, which would only cause the tomatoes to release more liquid. Sumac is available inexpensively in any Turkish supermarket. If you don’t have any, use only half the specified amount of olive oil and add a little vinegar. This slightly sour, fresh topping is a fitting complement to the slightly spicy, lemony vegetables and the smoky meat. The vanilla paste adds a slightly sweet, mild touch to the heat of the chili and ginger.